Anything Goes Gundam Fight
by JonaBee
Summary: For decades, one colony has suffered scorn and mockery from all of the others, but when their most sacred legend finally awakens... well, they'll still probably suffer scorn and mockery, but it'll be funnier.
1. Prologue Fight!

Disclaimer: We do not own anything to do with Gundams or Ranma one half characters, now Heero, please put down the buster rifle.

Heero: Affirmative.

This story is the result of Weebee's desire to write a Gundam Wing fanfic, plus his fear of the fangirls, plus a healthy dose of Jonakhensu's insanity and the fact that the only Gundam Series he knows is G Gundam.

Jonakhensu: Not true!

The clearly unhinged mad scientist muse with the death ray has nothing to do with it.

Prologue Fight... GO!

As the winds of Ranma's last Hiryu Shoten Ha died away, leaving several large boulders to crash to the ground in tremendous clouds of dust, the pigtailed martial artist stood, panting, with Akane clutched in one hand and the Gekkaja in the other, glaring up at the floating and glowing form of Saffron.

"Don't you see, you insect? It's useless!" the arrogant phoenix proclaimed, gathering energy into his hands to unleash yet another of his emperor fireball attacks. "Give up and die like the impudent landling you are!"

Ranma responded by raising the ice staff, channeling his aura through it as he had been doing for the majority of the fight, and trying to stave off the flames, while pushing away from the ground. He flew up on a wide arc, coming down with the scythe-like blade aimed straight at Saffron's heart. He didn't call out, only aiming to impale the opponent. The tactic actually worked, and the staff slid into Saffron's soft tissues, only stopping for a moment as it cleaved the bone of his ribs. Unfortunately, he'd used this opportunity to bring one of his wings around, knocking Ranma away, and leaving the magical weapon sticking from his chest.

"He's... alive?" the martial artist asked, as he fell to the ground where he'd started, and Saffron yanked the weapon free, spinning it in one hand. "That means..." He shook his head, then looked back to the sidelines, where Ryoga was hefting a rock to chuck at the phoenix king. "Ryoga!" he called, causing the lost boy to stop in his tracks and look at him. "Get over..." he was about to continue, when a new attack blind-sided him, sending him sliding across the ground and further tearing up the back of his shirt. "Okay, that was stupid..." he croaked out, then flipped to his feet, his legs wobbling under him, and jumped backwards to Ryoga's position.

"What are you doing, you idiot?" the lost boy snarled.. "You've got to get Akane to that water!"

"No, I don't," Ranma replied, and his eyes narrowed. "You do, and you'll see your chance. Don't get lost, pig boy."

"Hey, you bastard, I..." Ryoga started, ready to tear into his rival despite the seriousness of the situation, when Akane was placed into his upraised hand, and the pigtailed boy started to run across the massive crater that the top of Mount Phoenix had become. He ignored Saffron's next attack, though it succeeded in tearing the rest of his shirt from his back and scorching a good deal of the flesh there, only concentrating on his aura as he cooled it. Launching off of a rock just beneath the flaming phoenix.

Saffron's eyes widened, as he wondered precisely what the idiotic landling was playing at, but his answer came as Ranma got to his level in the air, and a sweeping, chilling cold seemed to come with him. "This is impossible!" He exclaimed, when he would have probably been better served by retreating, as Ranma's hand lashed out and grabbed a hold of the Gekkaja, willing his entire aura into it as he wrapped his arms around Saffron's body, pinning his wings to his side and causing them both to fall like rocks. When they hit the water in the pool at the base of the dragon and phoenix taps, they were so cold that it flash froze instantly, and the two were frozen within it, Ranma's expression locked in deep concentration, and Saffron's in complete and total horror.

The battlefield fell silent as the spout of water from the impact seemed to freeze in mid-air, and the column of ice started to progress up, towards the taps themselves. For once in his life, Ryoga knew exactly where to go, charging forward with Akane clutched in one hand, and throwing himself through the water stream just before the ice got too high for him to jump past. As P-chan and Akane fell out the other side, he thought that he could have thought this plan through a little better.

HR.

Nabiki Tendo frowned as she sat at the table in the Tendo Dojo's living room, looking around at the people who sat with her. "Okay, guys, where's Saotome," she asked, looking from face to face.

Genma looked impassive, and Ryoga was staring at the ground, as per usual. What truly startled her was that Akane was still sobbing, and Shampoo, of all people, was sitting next to her and comforting her. "We told you," Genma said, flatly. "The boy isn't coming back, and I'd appreciate it if you stopped asking."

She winced as she saw Akane's sobbing get harder. "No way, this is Saotome, we're talking about here," she objected. "If he ran off, and that's why Akane's crying, I'm going to milk him for every yen he has!" That, perhaps, wasn't the smartest thing she could have said, as Ryoga shot to his feet, his eyes filled with rage, and he reached across the table, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her to her feet. "Wh... what?" She stammered, looking into the lost boy's rage filled eyes.

"Shut... up," he hissed, his teeth bared. "Just shut up, before I do something I'll regret later." He then let the middle Tendo go, to fall shocked back to her seat and rub her arm.

"So, you're serious," she asked, though the throbbing in her arm told her quite enough about that. "He's dead?"

"He's not dead!"Akane burst out, quickly, before Shampoo quieted her again.

"No, he isn't dead, he is frozen in a large ice formation in the Jusendo Mountains," Genma explained, before standing and walking out of the room. "I... have to go and speak to Nodoka."

"Oh," Nabiki said, as her eyes started to water. She blinked several times, trying to clear them, but they wouldn't. "At least I won't have to pay out any of the bets," she mumbled, clearly in shock. Then, she recalled Kogane's entry, and sighed.

HR.

"Go 'way, Pop, I wanna sleep!" Ranma Saotome groaned as he rolled over on his futon, wincing as he felt several injuries. It'd probably been the Tomboy or Ryoga, again, and wasn't very important.

"Ranma, wake up," came a familiar voice that definitely wasn't that of Genma Saotome.

This actually got Ranma to consider opening his eyes. That had sounded like Dr. Tofu, and if that were the case then he was probably a lot more beaten up than usual. Still, the bed was so comfortable that he didn't want to leave it. 'Wait, bed?' he thought, and his eyes flew open instantly to see an unfamiliar ceiling. Turning his head, he saw the concerned face of the doctor peering down at him through his thin glasses. "Hey doc, what happened?" he asked, and winced as his voice came out in a harsh croak.

Tofu suddenly smiled, threw back his head and laughed. "He's alive!" He yelled, raising his hands to the ceiling.

"...Huh?" Ranma asked, looking at the brown haired man dubiously.

"Oh, um, sorry. I always wanted to say that," Tofu explained. "How are you feeling, Ranma-kun?"

"Like someone ran me over with a truck, but that's kinda standard," Ranma responded, and then sat up slowly, ignoring his body's rather painful insistence that that wasn't a good idea. Looking around, he blinked as he saw a place that looked vaguely like the set of a Sci-Fi movie, computer banks along one wall, several gleaming medical beds along another and a window that showed nothing but glimmering stars behind him. "Doc, where are we?" he asked, slowly.

Tofu's smile disappeared, and he looked at his patient apprehensively. "How much do you remember before you woke up here?" he tried.

"Um," the pigtailed martial artist said, reaching up to the back of his head to tug on his braid, only to find that the hair there had been cut short. His eyes widened at this, but he continued to think of what the doctor had asked him, none the less.

"Last thing I remember," he mumbled, concentrating. Abruptly, flashes of fire, pain and fear entered his mind, and memory seemed to crash down on him like a bursting dam. "Where's Akane? Is she all right?" he asked, forcing himself the rest of the way out of bed and to his feet. "Is she all right? Did Ryoga get her to the water in time, I..."

He was interrupted as a female voice came from the door, sounding happy and not all that coherent. "I'm right here, Mr. Ranma-sama," she said, though Ranma couldn't understand it as she was speaking in Basic. Still, he had heard her, and turned towards her to see a short girl, wearing what looked like a bright red jumpsuit, and with dark green hair cut in a short style.

"Akane-chan, you have to speak old Japanese, remember?" a tall, blonde haired man who stood behind the girl said, exasperated. "Hello, Ranma-sama, it is good to see that you are awake. I am Soun Tendo, commissioner of the Neo-Nerima colony."

"Guh?" the teenaged boy asked, and staggered slightly to the side, as his panic over Akane's safety gave way to his physical condition. "Mr. Tendo?" he asked, looking the older man over as Tofu held one arm. "Your hair's a little different, ain't it?"

Soun chuckled, but looked oddly at Tofu. "You haven't told the boy, Ono?" he asked, concerned.

"I didn't exactly have a chance to, Tendo-san," Tofu said in his own defense. "He only woke up a few minutes ago, and Ranma-kun always has been a heavy sleeper."

"Tell me what?" Ranma asked, starting to become agitated, "and you still haven't told me if Akane's all right!"

"I fine!" the green haired girl repeated, this time in a form Ranma could understand, and then grimaced. "Stupid old Japanese, make sound stupid."

"Says the girl who tried to revive someone from stasis with a hair drier," a third voice cut in, as a girl who was a few inches taller than Akane, wearing a blue jumpsuit, stepped in.

"Nabiki!" the other girl complained as Ranma looked between them in a state of ever increasing confusion.

"So, this is the great hero, huh?" the newcomer asked, looking at the martial artist critically. "He looks kind of slow."

"Hey!" Ranma complained, "What's your problem, anyways?"

The girl just sniffed, and turned to the tall blond man. "Can I go, now," she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

He sighed and shook his head. "I will talk to you about this later, Nabiki," he growled, gesturing towards the door. She only nodded tersely and walked out.

"Um, is she all right?" Ranma asked, looking after the girl for a moment. She definitely hadn't seemed like Nabiki. Well, the viciousness was certainly there, but she hadn't been nearly as cool and collected about it, and he wondered precisely what he'd done to piss her off so badly.

"She will be fine," Soun answered. He thought about mentioning the reason for her discomfort, but felt that pushing the colony's hero into a state of catatonic shock right after he woke up would be frowned upon, especially by the elder of the Joketsu. "Now, I believe that there is some explaining to do."

HR.

"...140 years." Ranma mumbled this to himself as he stared vaguely out of a window that showed a beautiful view of Earth. He didn't really see it, other than how much it reminded him of where and when he was. "...140 years."

The number had been the first thing he'd really fixed on during Soun's explanation. Not the fact that they were in space now, not the fact that half the colony apparently regarded him as some form of savior due to something he'd done to save one person's life, and not even that there was some form of twisted clone family of the Tendos here, no, it was all about the time. "...140 years."

"Still stuck on that, are you?" a crackling voice came from behind him, and Ranma turned to see a familiar form, green and gold robes rustling from on top of a staff.

"Ol' Ghoul?!" he asked, actually sounding happy to see her. Granted, he'd already seen Tofu, but he seemed somehow... off... from how he'd been before, and not least because he'd somehow barely aged. "You're still alive?"

The woman's staff lashed out and caught Ranma in the side of the head. "Of course I'm still alive, Son-in-law!"

He rubbed the side of his head, wincing. "Yeah, I guess nothing'd be able to kill you," he grinned back at her, "but did you have to hit me in the head? I still got a huge headache from before."

The elder snorted. "Stop complaining, Son-in-Law. I thought that you may have been sitting here and feeling sorry for yourself, so I decided to come and talk some sense into you."

"I ain't feelin sorry for myself," Ranma griped, but when he was given a steady look from the white haired woman, he sighed. "Okay, so even after I got used to it I always figured I'd leave the Tendo place eventually, but..." He gestured at the window. "This is kinda extreme, y'know?"

The old woman nodded and jumped from her cane to the table that he'd been leaning on, raising one hand to press against the thick glass. "I know, it was very hard to leave Earth," she admitted, "but you really should explore this colony, it has many interesting sights, and not to forget new martial arts techniques."

Ranma's eyes rose to look at the ancient Chinese Elder's at this, and she could see a familiar spark in them. "Hmm?" he asked, sounding a little less despondent.

"Go and explore, I'm sure you will find something that interests you here," she said, gesturing at the length of the colony behind Ranma's back. "Also, we have arranged a room for you in one of the habitat sections."

"Thanks, Ol' Ghoul, I think I'll do that," Ranma said, as he was handed a small card key, and then smacked in the back of the head by a staff again. Smirking, he stood and walked from the room.

The elder shook her head. "That boy is so predictable," she grumbled, before a throat clearing from nearby caused her to look over to the doorway, where commissioner Tendo stood with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Why didn't you tell the boy who you really are?" the man asked, mildly curious, rather than reproving.

Shampoo shrugged, and leapt back to the top of her staff. "I don't see why I should have," she responded. "After all, his little nickname is as accurate as it ever was with my great grandmother."

"So, what will we do now?" the man asked. "He doesn't seem very stable at the moment."

"Hmm," the Amazon said, bringing one gnarled hand up to stroke her chin. "Do you still have the plans that group of young ones submitted for a mobile fighter last year?"

"You can't be..." Soun said, his eyes widening.

Shampoo shrugged. "It would keep him busy, and we've wanted to take the Japanese down a peg or two for years. He'll definitely do that. As for me, I've got a great granddaughter to badger into stealing my husband."

Soun considered saying something, but didn't really think it wise for his skull's health, so he merely watched as the white haired woman pogoed away.

HR.

"Nabiki?" Elder Shampoo's voice drifted across the middle Tendo daughter's bedroom, and she sighed, closing the book she was reading.

"Yes, Elder?" She asked, dreading what was going to come next. She'd known that she had let her father's proclamation about Ranma Saotome irritate her earlier, and that she shouldn't have snapped at someone who'd just come out of cryosleep for thinking slowly, but she really didn't want to hear the lecture on that now.

"I see the look on your face, child," Shampoo said, hopping into the room and landing on the green haired girl's bed. "Do not worry, I'm not here to punish you. Personally, I think your father chose a rather foolish way to inform you of his little plan for his daughters and Ranma."

"So, you won't make one of us go through with this?" the younger girl asked, hopefully.

"I would like a member of my family line to become engaged to Ranma, at the very least to heal a very old wound of honor that I suffer from," Shampoo shook her head. "Still, I will not force the two of you to get married unwillingly."

"Hey, wait, why's it me?" Nabiki asked, raising a hand with her fingers in warding gestures.

"You recall what Kasumi said on the subject?" The matriarch said, levelly. "She will move to Neo-Antarctica, or worse, if her father pushes this on her. As for Akane... there are other reasons why she wouldn't be appropriate."

Nabiki shuddered. She still couldn't believe her older sister's proclamation, especially since 'Neo-Antarctica' was just a fancy name for a lot of ice. "Other reasons?" she demanded, wanting to know about why her younger sister, who actually seemed to really like the 'Hero of Nerima,' was out of the running.

Shampoo shrugged. "You do know that you are named after three sisters who lived on earth before the colonies, correct?"

Nabiki nodded.

"Back then, Ranma was engaged to Akane, and she was much... different... from your younger sister. Of all of you three, you are the closest to your former counterpart..."

"So you want me to replace this other girl who was around in the twentieth century?" Nabiki asked, glaring hotly at her elder, and getting a hard thwap to the side of the head in reply.

"Listen fully, girl," Shampoo snapped. "I have experienced culture shock. The feeling that nothing is as it should be, and everyone is strange, and frightening. What Ranma is experiencing is much, much worse than what I did, and something somewhat familiar would help him, but I don't expect you to start acting exactly like that Nabiki Tendo." She smirked. "Ranma would likely run from you screaming, if you did so."

"Argh!" Nabiki cried. "You're not making sense. What, exactly, do you want from me?"

"I want you to help a new, lost member of our colony get adjusted, and be a friend to him if possible," Shampoo said. "I also want you not, under any circumstances, to mention engagements or marriage." Jumping back to her staff, she looked back for a moment and cackled. "Also, you should probably get to know someone a little better before you call them slow. After all, Ranma may surprise you."

HR.

"I can't believe this," Nabiki Tendo grumbled to herself as she walked down the main corridor of the medical sector, ration card in one hand while the other rubbed at a large knot that was forming on the side of her head. "She didn't have to hit me that hard."

Granted, she had insulted the hero of the colony, but she really couldn't be blamed for it, could she? Her father had announced that she, or one of her sisters, would be married to the guy if the revivification process had been a success, and Akane had giggled happily about it, while Kasumi had said, in no uncertain terms, that she would be leaving for Neo-Antarctica if their father had tried to force her into it.

This, of course, left her holding the bag... or rather, the Fiance. Sighing in annoyance, she entered the cafeteria at the end of the hall, and blinked as she saw Ranma standing at the front, glaring at a food dispenser. Curious in spite of herself, she walked up behind him, observing as he bent forward and poked at the thing's screen. He managed to make it most of the way through the purchase process, which was surprising as she was pretty sure he couldn't read Basic, but was always caught at the point where it asked for his ration card. She watched this happen a couple more times, before finally sighing, and reaching past him to slide her card through the slot.

"Oh, uh," he said, looking at her oddly. "Hey."

"You need a ration card," she explained flatly, as the slot on the side of the dispenser opened and dropped a bowl of rice onto the shelf below it.

The formerly pigtailed boy's eyes lit up and he snatched the bowl, taking a pair of metal chopsticks from a basket on top of the machine and using them to gather a large amount of rice. Chewing it, his face convulsed into an odd expression for a moment, but he continued chewing anyways. When he was done, he explained, "Wasabi and Mayonnaise."

Nabiki grimaced in slight sympathy. "I would ask you to say thank you, but with a meal like that I'm not sure."

He shrugged. "Nah, thanks. It was a lot better than most of the stuff I got off of Akane, I mean, my fiancee, not your sister, I... aw crap."

For a moment, Nabiki caught herself thinking that his flustered look was kind of cute, before stepping on that thought mercilessly. "I know what you mean," she said. "Kasumi's cooking isn't a lot better."

Ranma's eyebrow twitched at someone insulting Kasumi's cooking. In Nerima, that would usually get you lynched by a good portion of the town. "Why do you people have to have those names?" he grumbled. "I'm half expectin you to start demanding money out of me rather than offerin a free lunch."

"Hey, who said it was free?" Nabiki objected. "You're paying me back later. As for the names, Granny thought it was funny, most likely... she does that a lot."

Ranma nodded, and stepped aside to let the green haired girl order her meal. He knew well the dangers of meddling old people.

Going over to a table where there was only one person sitting, Ranma pulled out a chair and sat across from him. Nabiki reluctantly sat next to him, setting down her hamburger. The man across from them, apparently one of the medical section's doctors, looked up and waved at the two lethargically. About three seconds later, he looked at the boy again and jumped up, all tiredness gone. "It... it's Ranma-sama, they told us you were going to be awake, but it... it's an honor to meet you, sir!"

The martial artist blinked slowly. "Huh?" he asked, as the other man reached out to shake his hand. He did recognize this gesture, at least, and returned the shake before the other turned and ran off, mumbling something about telling his friends, which Ranma completely missed, much like his first statement.

"Um, what'd he just say?" he asked, looking over at a bemused Nabiki. She sighed, but provided an approximate translation. "Wait, it was an honor to meet me, what the heck's he talking about?"

"You were told about the history of the colony, right?" the middle Tendo asked, exasperated. At his slow head shake, she grumbled. Not only was she stuck with this guy, who didn't even understand Basic, for at least a month, but now he apparently knew absolutely nothing about the colony. "You're considered a hero to a lot of the people of the colony, since it was water from the ice block that you were frozen in that allowed the colony to survive when support was cut off from Neo-Japan."

"Wait, so a whole colony survived on water from one ice block?" Ranma asked, knowing that the logistics of that really didn't add up.

"No, the water was from the spring that fuels Jusenkyo, and was used to give alternate, more easily maintained forms to everyone on the colony, as well as to produce food," Nabiki explained, holding up her hamburger as a demonstration. "It's a lot easier to keep insects than cows."

"Oh," Ranma said, surprised. He'd never thought of using Jusenkyo that way, but he supposed he'd never been trapped in space and running out of food and air before, either. "But I still don't get why he reacted to me like that, I mean I was just ridin around in the ice block, not really doing anything else." He shrugged, not realizing that he'd just scored at least some points with Nabiki for lack of ego, in spite of the fact that he just genuinely didn't get it.

"Well, I've got to show you around the rest of the colony, so no matter how unreasonable, you probably should get used to it," she responded.

"Oh, great," Ranma mumbled, and decided to go back to his oddly seasoned rice rather than having to worry about that.

HR.

"Ready, aim, fire!" Ranma's hands blurred into motion as the heavy machine-gun down range started firing, sending its projectiles screaming towards him at super-sonic velocities. This had been going on for a good three hours now, and he was starting to sweat as he swatted projectiles out of the air in various directions. A minute later, when all of the weapon's ammunition had been expended, he let his arms drop to his side, gratefully taking in large lungfuls of air.

"All right, how's it look?" Nabiki asked, from where she was standing at the side of the range.

"Two hits," the gunner yelled back.

"Hey, what'dya mean two hits?" Ranma objected, standing to his full height again, suddenly not looking tired at all. "I got 'em all this time!"

Nabiki shook her head as she walked over to him, pointing at his upper arm, where a blotch of blue from the machine-gun's paintball payload smeared the red of his traditional Chinese clothes. "And there's one on your chest, right over your heart."

"Damn it," Ranma grumbled. "This is more annoying than that whole hornet punching thing my old man had me doing."

"Hornet..." Nabiki shook her head. She supposed it was no more insane than trying to punch paint balls out of the air, but it was still a little odd hearing someone talking so casually about free flying insects for someone who'd spent her entire life on a colony.

"Set it up and lets try again," Ranma proclaimed. "I'm gunna get it this time."

"You were almost falling over when you finished this time, don't you think you should take a break?" Nabiki asked, sighing. To tell the truth, she'd been watching him do this for the past three hours, and it was even making her tired.

"I'm gunna get this mastered," he insisted, stubbornly.

"Ranma, you've only been at it for a week," Nabiki said, but could see that it was no use. Grumbling, she pulled a bottle of water out of nowhere, and dumped it over his head. "Cool off, and sit down," she ordered, glaring at the now red haired girl.

Ranma growled. With the change to female form and the subsequent speed increase, she knew that she could already get all of the bullets, but couldn't punch them hard enough with the quick strikes of the Amaguriken to deflect the more centrally aimed ones. "You're annoying," she complained, walking over to the side of the room and slumping to the ground.

"Does this mean I can finally go for lunch?" the guy who was manning the machine gun asked, mildly bored with his current task, and growing quite hungry.

Ranma was about to object, but it took her a little too long to find the words in Basic, and Nabiki told the guy to leave before she could. "You're being annoying, 'yknow," Ranma said, before pouting.

"That's kind of disturbing," Nabiki noted. While she'd seen a few of the older colonists who still bore curses from the dark days, none of them had had gender switching ones, and Ranma's easy, though unwilling, shifting from a rather handsome looking guy to a little redhead still unsettled her a bit.

"Think I like it?" the aforementioned redhead returned.

Nabiki shrugged. "At least it got you to stop trying to train yourself into an early grave," she noted. "This whole month, that's all you've been doing."

Ranma shrugged. "It's all I'm really good at," she responded.

"I don't know," Nabiki replied. "Maybe you just don't want to think about all the stuff that you left behind on earth." She didn't know why she said it. She wasn't sure if it was vindictiveness over having to deal with this irritating martial artist whose grasp of basic was about as good as your average four year old, or if she was honestly trying to help someone who was lost and alone. Still, what she got as a response was a surprise.

Ranma laughed.

"What's so funny?" She demanded, outraged for some reason that she really couldn't identify.

"Sorry," the redhead said, "The whole psycho-analysis thing was kinda funny, and you're pretty well dead wrong."

Nabiki crossed her arms and sniffed. "Oh yeah, you don't miss your family or friends at all?" she asked, now definitely poking just because she'd been offended.

"Oh, I miss 'em," Ranma said, leaning back against the wall and staring up at the ceiling of the firing range. "It's just... well, I guess no one up here'd really get it, 'cuz even the best martial artists can't really go anywhere where they'd get better training, but I was always on the road." She shrugged. "In the back of my mind, at the Tendo place, I was always wonderin when Pop'd pull up stakes and tell me we were moving again."

"Granny said you were engaged to a bunch of people there; were you going to leave them?" Nabiki asked, frowning darkly.

Ranma shrugged. "Not really," she answered, "But I figured the whole engagement marriage thing'd blow up in my face someday." She smirked sardonically. "Heck, it's probably a pretty good thing I got frozen when I did, saved a lot of grief when I finally chose, or when someone went nuts 'cuz I kept pushin things off. At least this way, everyone had a good life after I left."

"I don't know," Nabiki said, surprised to get that much information out of the normally silent Ranma. "Seems like a pretty sad way to live your life."

Ranma just shrugged. "Don't worry 'bout me, this place's got enough techniques to keep me around for a few more months, then, I dunno, maybe I'll head back down to Earth."

"You're going to leave?" she asked, both worried and a little relieved that she wouldn't have to worry about her father and Shampoo's stupid marriage plans.

Ranma nodded. "Don't wanna keep bugging you guys and taking up your food and stuff, and I ain't exactly good at living on a space station."

Hmm," Nabiki said, but frowned. What Ranma described still didn't seem like a very good life to her, but she shrugged that thought off as the redhead pulled herself to her feet. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to get some lunch, you want some? I'll bring it back," the pigtailed martial artist offered.

"No, I'll go down and eat with you so you can't sneak off and train somewhere else," the green haired girl said, smirking.

HR.

"Why are you dressed like that?" Nabiki looked dubiously at Ranma, as the shorter redhead stood in front of her door, wearing a one piece bathing suit. This wasn't the strange part of her ensemble, though, as she was also wearing an extremely floppy straw hat and a trench coat.

"You think anyone will recognize me?" she asked, hopefully.

"I think everyone's going to laugh at you or call you in to the authorities as a pervert," the middle Tendo drawled, irritably. "You know, you're the one who wanted to check out the swimming area, I don't know why you're acting like this."

"It's creepy," Ranma complained, as the two started down the corridor that lead out of Nabiki's residential block. "The staring and whispering is worse than it ever was in Furinkan, and all this hero of the colony stuff's making me twitchy."

"What, would you rather have everyone trying to shoot you in the back?" Nabiki asked, exasperated at her charge's complaints.

"That'd make me feel a little more normal, yeah," the redhead replied.

"I should have known," the green haired girl grumbled as the two entered a lift that ran the length of the primary hub. As it went down, she grinned at the look of wonder that appeared on Ranma's face. The martial artist hadn't quite gotten used to the whole space colony thing yet, and the windows that looked out of the car showed Neo-Nerima in all of its kludged together, patchwork glory. As they got to the end and the large slab of rock that was the swimming and recreation area, also formerly known as part of Neo-Australia's colony, hove into view, her smile got wider as she recalled Ranma's reaction when she'd told him where they'd gotten it.

"So you sure you can't tell me how you swiped that thing?" the short redhead asked.

Nabiki laughed. "I would if I knew, but I don't," she replied. "Rumor has it that someone used a massive hidden weapons field generator on it, but no one will admit to it, and if they did, that wouldn't explain how all the animals and plants are still there."

"Hmm," the redhead muttered. "Sounds like somethin Mousse'd try."

Nabiki was about to respond to that, when the lift car slid to a stop, and its massive doors opened on the recreation area. "Come on, let's go swimming, we've been training far too much lately."

Ranma shrugged. "I guess," she mumbled, "but I know I've almost got the space walk thing down."

Nabiki sighed, and grabbed the annoying redhead by the arm before starting to run, pulling her along.

HR.

There were few, and quite precious, moments of rest for certain portions of Neo-Nerima's citizenry. It was most rare and precious for those in the maintenance details, as the colony was in no way self-repairing, and required near constant maintenance. As such, Nabiki was enjoying her current position, sitting in a small cafe and sipping at a glass of ice cold water, quite a bit.

That was why Ranma was being tremendously annoying at the moment. "Is this what you consider fun?" he asked, sitting across the table from her and munching on a rice ball.

"Yes, yes it is, now leave me to it," she ordered, plucking a small grape from a plate in the middle of the table and popping it into her mouth.

Ranma grumbled about boring people, running his eyes along the storefronts that lined the narrow part of the beach they were sitting on. About all he saw of any interest was a video arcade, which had a few younger kids clustered around it. "I'm going to check that out," he said, and Nabiki only responded with a disinterested, and seemingly sleepy, affirmative.

Inside the arcade stood a number of different types of games, most involving some level of martial skill. There was even one that Ranma could remember seeing from his youth, though why PacMan had been recreated was beyond him. It was also the only game he actually knew have to play. The next five minutes reminded Ranma why he hadn't played PacMan very much as he had been growing up.

Moving to a different game, he found a nostalgic fighting game based off of the old Neriman fighters. It was somewhat surprising that some kid managed to beat him while playing as Kodachi. "This game can't tell a fighter's real skill," Ranma muttered to himself as he walked away from the machine, in search of a game based more in reality. It was then that he noticed the game most of the people in the room were focusing on. It was a fighting game unlike any he had ever seen before. Two opponents stood in what looked like giant snow globes, wearing poorly fitted gloves and boots. On a screen, two poorly drawn characters, one he could tell was himself, as a girl, and the other was his father's panda form.

"Hey, this is pretty cool," Ranma said. "Think I can get next shot?" Right then, Ranma-chan slammed the panda over the head with a ripped up street sign, and Ranma couldn't help but feel a sense of far belated revenge.

"Come on," a brash female voice called from Ranma-chan's globe. "Anyone else going to try? I was hoping for a real match, but I guess that won't be happening anytime soon."

"I'll give it a go," Ranma replied, his eyes nigh on glowing in excitement. The girl in the globe didn't respond verbally, just waving one hand in a challenging manner, and the pigtailed martial artist stepped forward, accepting the game's control gear from the man who had been playing Genma, whom he recognized as one of Nabiki's fellow engineers.

Strapping the gloves and boots on as best he could, the martial artist lifted the helmet and placed it over his head, the outside world becoming slightly muffled as he did so.

"Are you ready?" the girl on the other side of the game's display asked, and Ranma nodded. Almost immediately his vision was full of light, which dissipated to reveal a surprisingly good mockup of the Tendo Dojo, with several very familiar faces standing there, many of the cursed people being flanked by their cursed forms. He flinched away from Shampoo-neko, which made him accidentally bump his hand against his female form's image. "Fighter selected!" The computer announced.

"Damn it," Ranma muttered, "I didn't even use water this time." Granted, he was, in fact, still male, but his avatar definitely wasn't.

"Hmm, that's quite a challenge," his opponent said. "I hope you're as good as you think you are."

Ranma's eyebrow twitched. "That it, you're... beaten," he said, and cursed his poor grasp of Basic. The girl just laughed.

"I won't lose to a simpleton like you," she sneered, and abruptly launched herself forward. Ranma countered by dodging rapidly to the side and bringing up a foot, catching his opponent in the back of the head, and making her slam into the ground. He wasn't sure what simpleton meant, but he didn't exactly like it, and was fully intent on making her pay for it, given the fact that he couldn't really hurt her in the simulation.

About thirty seconds later, after she'd gotten up and stopped cursing him for cheap psychological warfare, the fight had really gotten under way. Ranma was, in fact, still managing to outflank his opponent, but the fact that her body was more compatible with the fighting avatar was definitely helping her out. 'For once I'd actually like to be a girl, and I'm not,' he grumbled mentally, ducking out of the way of a flying kick and rolling to kick backwards into his opponent's back.

"That's it, time to finish this!" she shouted, righting herself and turning. Ranma was about to ask what she was planning, when her hands blurred into a cloud of fists. Oddly, the attacks didn't seem to be following the arm motions quite correctly, but he dismissed this as he exploded into his own Amaguriken attack.

The speed kept accelerating, as the computer, unknown to Ranma, kept trying to compensate for human reaction times that no one but the greatest fighters in the colony should have. On the other side of the game display, his opponent had stopped moving entirely, other than her hands, and her avatar's mouth was gaping wide open. Ranma quickly took advantage of this, sweeping his leg out while continuing with the Amaguriken, and catching her across the knees.

"Match complete, Winner: Ranma Saotome, Female, Player 2." The computer announced, and Ranma pulled the helmet off to see two things. One, the audience around the machine was staring in a state of shock, and two, Nabiki was glaring at him and tapping her foot from near the entrance to the building. "Oh, crap," he muttered, setting the helmet down on its shelf and beginning to take off the gloves and boots.

As he stepped down from the snow globe, his opponent called out, "You, wait!"

"Huh?" he asked, turning to see a woman with hair the same color as Nabiki's, though she looked to be a few years older and had a hard glare etched across her face. "Yeah?" he asked, casually.

"Who are..." she started, before she caught a glimpse of his face. "Oh..."

"Um, you all right?" Ranma asked, as the girl gaped at him just as her game avatar had before.

"Yeah, she's fine; you just shocked my sister," Nabiki drawled, walking up next to him. "And I thought you promised not to do any training today?"

"Hey, that wasn't training, it was a game!" Ranma objected.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's just go and find something else to do," the middle Tendo ordered, as her older sister continued staring glassy eyed, and eventually let her helmet slip from nerveless fingers.

"Maybe I was a little too hasty..." she mumbled quietly.

HR.

"You know, that's a violation of privacy," Shampoo spun at the voice, flipping a switch to disengage the camera that she'd had monitoring her great granddaughter and Airen to see Soun standing in front of her desk, looking at her levelly.

"It's my perogative," she insisted, "as a great grandmother and wife."

Soun shook his head. "You know that even if she's learned that Ranma isn't as bad as she initially thought, Nabiki-chan will be very resistant to the idea of marrying him."

"Yes, but an old woman can dream, can't she?" Shampoo asked, though Soun saw a look in her eye that he didn't like. It was much like the one his wife would develop when she suggested one of her... interesting... additions to the colony's infrastructure. "How goes the construction on the mobile fighter?" she asked, changing the subject.

Soun smiled. "Those students definitely know their work," he admitted. "It's actually coming together rather well, though I still don't see why we're keeping it from the boy."

Shampoo frowned darkly. "Ranma is a person who needs a large amount of challenge, as well as ever-changing stimulus to thrive and be truly happy."

"From what you told me, he nearly died every week when you and he were in old Nerima," Soun said, incredulously.

Shampoo nodded. "And have you noticed how he acts here? His first space walk was done after 'only' three weeks of training, and I am speaking of a walk using the aura-sheath technique. He will eventually reach the end of what he can learn of his chosen art here and wish to move on."

"And you're using colony resources to ensure that it doesn't happen any time soon," Soun objected, slightly annoyed.

"There are other reasons for what we are doing," Shampoo objected.

"Yes, and though they are good, they aren't the ones you care about," Soun shot back, but then smiled. "Elder, we owe both you and him much, especially my family, so I don't object to this, but you have to remember that Neo-Nerima is always on the edge of toppling. If anyone finds out about Jusenkyo..."

"If we win the fight and are able to restructure Nerima, that won't matter," the Amazon matriarch insisted.

"Elder, if you are so certain that he will win this..." Soun said, looking out the window behind Shampoo's desk to the glimmering stars beyond. "I have faith that you are right."

"I'm sending Nabiki down with him."

"You're WHAT?!" Soun burst out, as he processed Shampoo's final statement.

"She has been the one who taught him the ways of the colony, and very few people speak old Japanese, also, she's a competent mechanic and mobile suit pilot."

"Those are only excuses and you know it!" Soun said, now much more angry. "How could you send my baby down to that dangerous battlefield?!"

Shampoo smirked. "Tendo-san's demon head is still a little beyond you, child," she said, and then continued, "besides, do you really think that Ranma will let Nabiki die? You've seen what he'll do for someone he's protecting. You stared at it every day when you walked through the colony hub before he was moved to the medical labs."

Soun looked uncomfortable. "I suppose so," he admitted. "I'm going to start Nabiki on advanced mobile suit tactics immediately, though." He knew that it was pointless to argue with Shampoo on this matter, and even though she was only using the points to get her way, the things she'd said were true. "Is there anything else?"

Shampoo shook her head. "No, not at all," she answered, and the man turned, knowing that she was undoubtedly starting to think of yet another scheme to make his life difficult.

HR.

"What did you say?" Ulube Ishikawa demanded, as he glared at the face of one of his aides on a monitor.

"I said that Neo-Nerima's just announced their intentions to enter this year's Gundam Fight," the aide said, nervously. "Apparently, some heroic martial artist has returned to the colony and they think he's good enough to compete."

"Heroic martial artist, hmm?" Ishikawa pondered. "Could it be... did that bastard decide to play more games with us?"

"Sir?" the aide asked.

"No, nothing, it's not important," Ishikawa said, scowling. "If any data is revealed on their gundam or fighter, tell me."

"Yes sir, all we know for now is that the machine is apparently called the Rain Gundam," the man reported.

Under his mask, the military officer's eyebrow twitched violently. 'Think you're funny, do you Asia?' he thought, clenching one fist on his lap. "You're dismissed," he barked at the aide, before slamming one hand down on the keyboard of his communications device, causing the screen to disappear into blackness.

HR.

In the Neo-Australian colony's Outback, there stood an unimpressive looking building. The inside of this building, however, was much more interesting. As the control center of the colony's military, it was suitably sophisticated inside. They had just received an announcement concerning the Gundam Fight, and it was creating quite a stir.

"Sir, this just in from Neo-Sydney," one of the aides reported. "Neo-Nerima has just declared their intention to join this year's Gundam Fight."

"Are you sure?" the general demanded. "If those freaks make fools of us again, we'll never live it down. Even worse, I'll lose my stars!" Turning to his aide, he said, "We'll have to insure that such an occurrence is not allowed to come to pass. Not again. I want you to find some way to ensure Neo-Nerima will not embarrass us in the up-coming battles."

"Sir, yes, Sir," the aide replied, snapping a crisp salute. The man was competent, and could be expected to do get the job done with great efficacy. The general would bet his stars on it.

HR.

"Did I just see a giant meteor fly past when I was out there?" Ranma asked, as he stood in the airlock with Nabiki, following a walk to repair a broken solar panel.

"...I think so," Nabiki replied, slightly shocked herself. "I heard that Neo-Japan threw one at us many years ago, probably some way to assuage their consciences for leaving us to rot." She shrugged. "Maybe they'll toss another one our way in another fifty years."

"So... they threw rocks at you and it's supposed ta help you?" Ranma asked, blinking in confusion.

Nabiki nodded. "Yeah, we rope them in and bolt them onto the outer hull, you're living in the last one they sent our way."

"Um, all right..." Ranma said, but for some reason he was pretty sure that someone was missing a pretty colossal point. "So what are we doing now? I've got nothing much ta do the rest of the day."

"Right, so you bug me," Nabiki grumbled, though she did have to admit that his help with the repair work had made it go much more quickly. "Father's actually called for us."

Ranma nodded, and followed the middle Tendo as the airlock' door slid open, allowing them both passage into the hall beyond. "So, any idea what he wants?" he asked, tugging at his extremely short pigtail. He really wished the thing would grow in faster, but was afraid to do it artificially in case he ended up with another dragon whisker problem.

Nabiki shrugged. "I've got no idea, but he's had me pulling extra time in mobile suits the last few months, so it probably has something to do with that."

Ranma winced. He recalled the one time he'd piloted a mobile suit. According to the reports, there was still a piece of it wedged into sector 3's exhaust port. "I hope he doesn't expect me ta use it," he grumbled.

Nabiki snickered. "Hey, at least the guys at the mobile suit lab don't consider you a god anymore."

"Don't remind me," he grumbled, as the two got onto the elevator that would take them to the colony's administrative offices. Since it was much smaller than most of the core shaft lifts, the elevator only took them a few seconds to get to the destination, and slid open to the hallway in front of the commissioner's office.

The secretary waved at Nabiki, gesturing for her to enter, and gave Ranma a dubious look for a moment before recognizing him and bowing him through as well. When the two entered, Soun was sitting behind his desk, Shampoo at his side.

"Hello Son-in-law, Nabiki-chan," Shampoo greeted, while Soun just nodded to the two.

"Hey, Ol' Ghoul," Ranma said, and was promptly nudged in the side by Nabiki. Given that she knew how tough he was, the nudge was rather hard.

"I'm sorry, great grandmother," she said, quickly, knowing how Shampoo reacted to disrespect.

"It's fine, Nabiki, Ranma wouldn't know how to respect his elders if you gave him a two year course on it. believe me, it has been tried," the old Amazon said, chuckling.

Soun cleared his throat. "There is a reason why I've called you two here," he said, trying to get things back on track. Seeing that everyone was listening, he continued, "Even with all of the strides we've been making in the past years, Nerima is still one of the smallest and least respected colonies in the Earth Sphere. This year, in order to try and rectify that, we have decided to enter a fighter in the Gundam Fight."

Nabiki gasped, while Ranma just looked at the man blankly. "The what fight?" he asked, eloquently.

"It's a tournament to determine which colony leads the Earth Sphere for the next four years after its completion, and one entrant from each country normally participates. We don't usually bother with an entry, since everyone ignores us anyways, but this year we felt it would be in our best interests to do so."

Ranma grinned, cracking his knuckles. "So, ya want me to go down and win the fight, huh?" he asked, and Nabiki grimaced. To think, she'd once thought that he had little ego.

"Ranma, the Gundam Fight uses mobile fighters, like mobile suits with a different control system. You do remember what happened last time you flew a mobile suit, right?" she asked, in order to bring the martial artist's ego down a peg or twenty.

"Oh, right," Ranma mumbled.

"Actually, we are going to use Ranma for this," Shampoo cut in. "We have tested his capability to use a mobile fighter, and it is actually quite high, as I would expect."

"You tested me, when?" the pigtailed martial artist demanded, both confused and slightly uneasy.

"One of the arcade games you played in the market district was a mobile fighter simulator, actually." Soun explained. "We had it save your data."

"Oh..." Ranma said, uncertainly. "Still, it's a fight, right? I can win any fight ya wanna throw at me!"

Nabiki raised one hand to rub at her forehead. "Idiot, you're going to get yourself killed down there," she objected.

"No, because you are going to prevent that from happening," Shampoo cut in. "We're sending you down as his mechanic."

"WHAT?! You're just doing this to..." Nabiki bit back her words at her elder's hard look. She'd been told that telling Ranma about the fact that she was to try and seduce him was grounds to be removed from her position as an engineer and reassigned to beetle farm duty, but she really, really wanted to speak up right now.

"C'mon, it won't be so bad, will it?" Ranma asked, looking at the only person in the colony, other than Cologne and Tofu, who really knew him and didn't try to bow every time they saw him. Well, other than those guys n the mobile suit lab, but they threw wrenches at him, and that was never fun. ...good endurance training, though.

Nabiki had several things to say about how bad it would be, including the fact that she'd have to go down to Earth and likely get shot at, but as she looked at Ranma's expression she felt that saying any of them would be like drop kicking a puppy. "I... guess it wouldn't be that bad," she said, slowly, not noticing the white haired Amazon and her father growing stupid grins.

"So, it's decided?" Soun asked, levelly.

"I suppose, but shouldn't Ranma get some training on the machine first?" Nabiki asked. "Hell, shouldn't I know what kind of hardware I'm going to be repairing?"

"Now, what sort of challenge would that be?" Shampoo asked, suppressing a cackle.

Both young people's eyebrows twitched.

"The tournament will begin in two days, and you two will launch tomorrow," Soun said, standing from his desk and walking around it. "Good luck to the both of you," he said, and bowed.

As the two stood and turned to leave, Soun called, "Ranma-san, please stay back a moment."

Ranma nodded, turning towards the desk, and his eyes widened as he saw Soun point to the Amazon matriarch next to him, then point to the door. Their eyes locked in a short battle of wills, but eventually the old woman jumped to the top of her staff and pogoed out of the room.

"My boy," Soun started, resting a hand on Ranma's shoulder and starting to remind the Saotome youth of his father during lectures. "You are going to be down there with Nabiki, and you're going to be the only one to protect her."

"Hey, don't worry about it, I'll take care of her," Ranma shot back. "Besides, have you seen what she keeps in weapons space? I really don't think you've gotta worry about that."

Soun scowled. "Yes, I'm aware, however I should warn you that if anything happens to my daughter, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth and... I'll let you fill in the rest."

Ranma gulped, suddenly thinking of his mother's gleaming Katana. "Um, sure, I understand," he said, feeling extremely annoyed by the slight quaver of fear in his voice.

"I'm glad you understand," Soun said, withdrawing his hand from Ranma's shoulder. As he did so, Ranma caught a glimpse of a strange red and gold tattoo on the back of his hand. "Go on and get ready," he ordered, after Ranma remained standing there for several moments.

As the pigtailed boy turned around and left, Soun heard him muttering about Tendos, the Demon Head technique and nightmares.

HR.

Ranma woke the next day feeling a stinging pain in the back of his right hand. It, of course, hadn't been what woke him up, that had been the extremely loud alarm that was still blaring into his ear. Annoyed, he reached over and punched the device, which had been developed to withstand a whole colony full of irritable martial artists, and it turned off immediately.

Slowly opening his eyes, he noticed an odd white patch on the hand that he'd just punched the clock with, but dismissed it as he pondered rolling over and going back to bed. Knowing that the next measure that would be invoked to force him up was a spray of water, he reluctantly rolled to his feet, looking around his sparsely decorated quarters. "At least there's not much to pack," He mumbled, withdrawing a small bag from under his bed and placing his clothes, the few martial arts scrolls he'd obtained, and two other items inside. The last two were both small, ornate looking staves, one topped with a ring and one with a blade. He wasn't sure what he was going to do with them, but they had been given to him and they were far too powerful to just leave out, especially in a place where a pressure drop would mean the deaths of half of the people in the section.

Zipping up the bag, he tossed it on the bed and made his way to the bathroom, where he quickly washed and changed clothes. That, of course, was when the white thing on his hand, which turned out to be a gauze patch, came off. He blinked down at the back of the appendage, looking at the red symbol of a smiling joker he saw there. "This is just like..." he muttered, recalling the thing he'd seen on Mr. Tendo's hand the day before. "But why..." He shook his head, walking out of his room dressed fully in a set of his traditional red and black clothes. About the only thing that didn't look right was his hair, which would grow all the way back in time.

Picking up his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder, he looked around the room, which now was even emptier than before. he'd been here for over eight months, and it had started feeling like the guest room at the Tendo place had been, a comfortable place to sleep that would always be there when he needed it, and with at least a few friends around. Shaking his head, he turned and left. "Time to move on again," He said, and though he felt a small amount of regret about that, he was also really looking forward to fighting new, stronger opponents.

HR.

"Let me guess, we're riding this thing down?" Ranma asked, as he stood in the middle of a small room, two heavily braced and padded chairs at the front, surrounded by screens.

Nabiki nodded. "All of our stuff's packed inside of a HWF generator, and our machines are being sent down after us."

Ranma nodded. "Hope you know how to fly this thing into atmosphere," he muttered, still kind of nervous about the idea of space flight, even after over eight months in the colony.

"Would you relax?" Nabiki asked, settling into her seat and strapping in. "Or would you rather fly us in?"

Ranma's eyebrow twitched. "Just do it," he griped, as the green haired girl started flipping switches, making ready for launch. Right after she'd sealed the locks and signaled all clear for docking, her eyes widened. "What is it?" he asked, worriedly.

"No way..." Nabiki breathed, pulling several displays up in front of her, one of which showed schematics of a fully humanoid form. "They didn't..." As the pod they were inside was pushed away from the colony, and started its slow, inevitable drift downward into atmosphere, she realized, "they did... They sent us down inside of your gundam."

"But I thought it was supposed to have some different control system or something?" Ranma asked, looking worried.

Nabiki shrugged helplessly. "It says it does, and there's an activator for it, but..." She was cut off as the very first wisps of the outer atmosphere caught the ship. "Well, we've got no choice now," she mumbled sourly. "Not enough reaction mass to break orbit. We're going down!"

"Ol' Ghoul, this is all your fault!" Ranma yelled, as the rattling started to get worse.

END.

Okay, this chapter is probably longer than the average or even excessively large example of this fic's chapters, mostly because of all of the expositing and setup we had to do. Just to warn you, 10K words is NOT a common occurance for either of the authors in question here, and Weebee has to be prodded with a sharp stick to get past 3K.


	2. Rise, Rain Gundam!

Agatha wanted more BOOM in this chapter, but there was only so much we could do. Please enjoy.

Chapter 1: Rise, Rain Gundam!

"We're coming in a little too fast, aren't we?" Ranma asked, not really wanting to show fear, but also not wanting to end up looking like a pancake on the landscape. This was about ten times higher up than he'd ever fallen from before, and at the moment, the protection of a re-entry pod and a mobile fighter didn't seem that great.

"I know," Nabiki muttered. "I'm going to shoot whoever input this course.," she added, returning her eyes to the computer screen in front of her, typing away to try to adjust their attitude so that they didn't hit a mountain or something. Hitting water would be very slightly less jarring, but also would likely cause them to drown afterward if they were knocked out. Then again, Ranma's skull was slightly thicker than the pod's hull armor, so she probably didn't have to worry about that.

Making her decision, she plotted a course for what looked like a large lake. "Hold on, this is probably going to hurt," she reported, checking her straps for a final time.

Ranma nodded, and started glowing with Chi energy to try and harden his body to the shock of the landing. "It's times like this when I really wish I'd learned the breaking point," he mumbled, and stared fixedly out the window as the water rushed up to meet them.

HR.

In a room lit only by a single spotlight sat a man in a red suit, with an eyepatch over his right eye, gazing steadily at the readers. "Hello there," he started, raising one hand to his chin. "I would like to explain to you all, if you don't mind, a little about this G Gundam Fanfic. Don't worry, I'll only give this narration once, and if you want, you can skip down to the "HR.", and skip me entirely." He smiled.

Clearing his throat, he continued, "Many years ago, before the colony nations fled the intolerable conditions of earth for space, a test group was needed, in order to ensure the feasibility of life in a colony. Only one population large enough was found who were reckless enough to volunteer, and thus, Neo-Nerima became the first colony in outer space.

They succeeded in their task, and demonstrated several problems with the system used for colonization, but due to the worsening situation back on earth, their home nation, Japan, could not supply Neo-Nerima with the resources they needed, as they weren't self-sustaining." He frowned. "The colony was left to die, but its citizens would not fall without a fight, and through "Project Meow-Hiss!" they survived, using special, secret technology... or at least, everyone thinks it's technology, to change their very forms to ones more suited to low resource usage."

As he spoke the next words, a large image appeared behind him of a posing Gundam, its livery in red and black. "Now, many years later, and after etching out a place for itself in the colonies, Neo-Nerima has finally decided to field a fighter into the thirteenth Gundam Fight, to fight for its honor and perhaps the governance of all of the colonies! Why are they doing this? Are they vengeful against the country that abandoned them? Are they seeking power? or is someone just very bored? Now is the time to find out!"

He stood, grabbing hold of one shoulder of his jacket and yanking hard. The cloth seemed to tear free, obscuring his form from view for a moment, before he re-appeared wearing a white and grey suit, his eyepatch removed showing a perfectly healthy eye beneath, and holding a microphone. "Fighters ready? Anything Goes Gundam Fight, GO!"

HR.

"Commander, one of the Gundams has come down within our borders!" a man called, as the commander in charge of Sweden's Gundam maintenance team sat at a desk and drank his first cup of morning coffee.

"Did you get an identification on it?" he asked, yawning.

"No, sir, it hasn't been activated yet, but we did project that the colony that sent it was somewhere in the far east sector, and it came down near Nedre Fryken," the lieutenant who had brought the first report said.

"Is it Neo-Japan again?" the commander pondered, and then frowned. "The Gundam Fight doesn't start until tomorrow, but I don't want a machine camped out on our doorstep. Hmm..."

"Order our forces to set up the Gundam's deployment base nearby. We'll hit them with the same surprise tactics they're trying to use on us," he decided.

"Yes sir," the Lieutenant said, saluting and turning to go.

HR.

"Okay, so that's connected to that, and that's..." Nabiki mumbled, as she dug around inside of a hatch on the outside of the Gundam's landing capsule. "Damned thing, had to get busted right when we landed." She, of course, studiously ignored the fact that she, herself, was rather banged up.

"All right, I got your pack!" Ranma's voice came from outside of the hatch, and he dropped a large rucksack next to her feet. She only grunted, reaching back out and pulling the bag inside with her.

Ranma considered asking if she needed any help, but knew that he wasn't very good with the more delicate parts of electronics repair. "I'm going to scout around, all right?"

All he got from the working engineer was a non-committal grunt. "And she says I'm rude 'n uncultured," he complained, running off and leaping up to the top of a rock outcropping nearby. Looking back, he had to wince at what he saw. Their bright red landing capsule was sitting in a huge gouge in the ground that had been created when their course had been just... slightly... off, and they'd careened into the shoreline. Still, its self-righting systems had worked. Unfortunately, something had snapped inside of one of the hydrolic motors that opened the thing, which meant that the Gundam was stuck inside, and the GPS and Comm systems were... probably in the lake; they definitely weren't on the capsule anymore. "Haven't even seen the damned thing," he griped, and turned to observe the landscape around them.

In the distance, he saw what looked like a heavy dust cloud rising above the treeline, almost as if someone were driving a large amount of heavy machinery, or herding cattle, nearby. "What..." he mumbled, bringing a hand up to shield his eyes and trying to get a better look. All he saw were several large, nondescript looking trucks. Jumping from the rock, he started running towards them, to ensure that they wouldn't be a threat, and to see who else was around here.

As he got within about twenty meters, he saw that the trucks had military markings on them. Quickly, before anyone could see him, he ducked down behind a rock at the side of the road and watched them go past. At the end of the line, though, he saw something that made his eyes widen. "That's..." he said, and couldn't help but start snickering. Just to confirm what he'd just seen, he leapt to the top of the rock he'd been hiding behind, and from there onto the back of the flat bed transporter on which lay the weirdest looking giant robot he'd ever heard of, and given that he'd seen Giant Robo, that was saying something.

"It..." he said, and then started snickering. "It looks like one of those magical girls!"

"Hey, you! What are you doing here?!" he heard someone call out, and turning he saw a man in a black uniform pointing a gun at him from a door that lead into the innards of the flat bed's cab.

"Oh crap," the pigtailed martial artist exclaimed, jumping off of his current perch and rolling to his feet as a bullet bounced off of the metal where he'd been a minute before. Seeing the soldier turning and running back inside of the massive transport, the martial artist cut and run across the almost completely flat landscape, dodging between the trees, and heading back for where Nabiki was working on the landing capsule.

When he looked back a few minutes later, he didn't see anyone coming after him, and a sweep of the area with his Chi sense didn't spot anyone either, so he sighed in relief. "What in the world was that thing?" he mumbled, recalling the giant robot magical girl. "Was that someone's Gundam?" Then, his face went pale. "Given the Ol' Ghoul's sense of humor, mine could look like that, too." He grimaced, and began preying to whatever Kami didn't already have it out for him that that wasn't true.

HR.

In some metaphysical, highly abstract realm of pseudo-reality, Aphrodite smiled.

HR.

"They what?!" the commander of the Neo-Swedish team yelled, bringing one hand down on his desk with an impact that rattled his coffee cup.

"They sent someone to scout us out, I think, Sir," his aide reported, clutching several papers in his hand spasmodically. "The guards report that he was standing on Nobel Gundam's transport bed when they caught him."

"Was the Gundam damaged?" the commander asked, narrowing his eyes.

"No, sir, we caught him before he could do anything," his aide said, deciding not to mention the fact that the insurgent had been reported as snickering. He valued his career, not to mention his ear drums, far too much for that. "He jumped off of the vehicle and ran off into the forest."

"And we somehow failed to catch him?" the higher ranked officer glared.

"He apparently ran quite fast, sir," the aide tried, nervously. "And the tree cover is rather thick this close to the lake."

The commander considered bursting out again, but raised his hand to his forehead, rubbing vigorously to dispel his tension headache. "All they got was a quick look at our machine," he reassured himself, picking up his coffee cup and taking a sip from the contents before setting it back down. "Since the element of surprise is ruined, we may as well return the favor. Get Allenby and that idiotic scientist, we're going to pay our new neighbors a visit."

"Yes, sir!" the aide said, saluting and turning to leave the room.

HR.

"A giant... magical girl?" Nabiki asked, as she and Ranma sat around a small fire that he'd built next to the capsule that still held the unseen form of their Gundam.

"Yeah. It's even got a giant bow on its chest," he snickered. "Is it supposed to be another one of the Gundams?"

Nabiki nodded. "I've heard that some countries use rather outlandish designs, though each of them has some form of strategy behind it. I don't think you should be laughing at it."

"Yeah, you're probably right," the martial artist who regularly used the cute little girl distraction technique admitted, "but the thing still looks ridiculous. Hey, you don't think the Ol' Ghoul would rig ours to look like that, do ya?"

"I've seen the basic schematics, though I haven't looked at them since we got down," Nabiki objected. "It looks a little too large to be patterned that way, but we really won't be able to find out until we manage to get the damned drop pod open." She grimaced. The impact with the ground had screwed up almost every hydrolic motor in the capsule's opening system, and she wasn't sure how long it would take her to repair it. "That's another problem," she mumbled, picking at her food.

"What?" Ranma asked, curiously.

"Well, the Gundam Fight starts tomorrow, and they'll be able to legally attack us whether we're ready or not." The middle Tendo explained, frowning up at the thing she was trying to repair.

"I'm gunna be ready," Ranma objected, standing and raising one hand to his face. Oddly, as he did so, the red patch on the back of it caught his eyes for a moment. His mechanic gave him a disgusted snort.

"Yeah, you're going to be ready, but do you plan on fighting a mobile fighter with your bare hands?" she demanded, setting down her rice bowl and looking at him dubiously. He moved his raised hand in to rest on his chin, and her eyebrow twitched. "The answer, Ranma, is NO!"

The martial artist looked vaguely disappointed for a moment. "C'mon, I've seen those mobile suits back on the colony, they aren't all that tough looking." Then he shuddered, recalling how he'd accidentally destroyed one.

"You've never seen a mobile fighter before," Nabiki explained, raising her eyes to the sky as she seemed to remember something. "I saw the twelfth Gundam Fight, at least, I saw the finals. When I saw Master Asia and the Haow Gundam defeat England to win... they destroyed a good portion of a mountain range."

"That good, huh?" Ranma asked, smirking. "Sounds like it'd be fun."

Nabiki was about to try and convince the egotistical martial artist that things were a lot more serious than he seemed to think, when she heard the sound of a motor approaching from the distance. Ranma seemed to have heard it too, as he turned his head in the same direction. "Sounds like a small car," he commented.

"That's probably whoever you discovered earlier," she answered, and stood, dumping a small bucket of water over the fire while Ranma moved over to the edge of the tree line, both to watch for the newcomers and to get as far away from the bucket as he could. Seeing a set of headlights appearing in the distance, he squinted into the darkness of the dusk, but could only make out gleams of metal off of what looked like badges, and a swath of light blue.

The vehicle made it to their camp site within a few moments, and three people stepped out. One was a tall, grey haired man in a military uniform, and he was flanked by a short man with glasses and a bulbous nose, and a teenaged girl with light blue hair and casual clothes. The pigtailed martial artist was about to say something, but Nabiki cut in before he could, "Hello, are you the representatives from this nation's government?" she asked, smoothly. At the grey haired military man's terse nod, she smiled a little sheepishly and asked, "Could you tell me what country we landed in?"

The blue haired girl actually laughed at this, but was quickly silenced as the officer sent her a sharp glare. "You obviously take us for fools," he snarled. "You must know full well that you plotted your landing capsule's course into Neo-Swedish airspace!" Saying this, he turned to said craft, and looked it over, frowning darkly at what he saw. "Where is your Gundam?"

"I don't see how that's any 'o your business, if you're from another country," Ranma said, just as Nabiki was going to tell them that it was still inside. "Now, what do ya want?"

The military man's eyebrow twitched violently as he turned to glare at the black haired boy. "We are here to challenge you to a Gundam Fight," he spat out. "Which of you is your country's Gundam Fighter?"

"I am," Ranma answered, rather glad that he'd managed to piss this guy off. Something about him really rubbed him the wrong way. "The Fighter for Neo-Nerima, Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Martial arts, ready ta kick yer asses."

"Well then, this is Allenby, our Gundam Fighter," the military man said, gesturing backwards to the girl, who now looked rather nervous. "You will meet her on the field of battle at the break of dawn tomorrow morning."

"Aw crap," Ranma and Nabiki said in unison, and for very different reasons. As Ranma looked over his opponent, he winced. He was fully capable of fighting girls, well, with the exception of maybe Akane, but he really didn't like doing it all out, and chances were that he was going to have to get pretty brutal to take down a giant robot.

"What, are you forfeiting?" the military man asked, his dark look suddenly brightening a little.

Ranma shook his head, then looked at the girl again. "No hard feelings about this right? You ain't gunna start hunting me down to kill me after I win?"

She actually snorted, and then started laughing full out. "You... you can't be serious, can you?" she asked, and then smiled at him. "You're pretty funny, I've got to admit... It'll be a shame to beat you." Her expression abruptly lost all of its cheer, and she looked between the military man and the so far silent shorter man, before nodding back at Ranma. "Don't worry, no hard feelings on my part, I promise." She said, reaching out a hand for Ranma to shake. He did so, and the two backed off.

"Guess I'll see you tomorrow," he said, and saw Nabiki slapping her forehead out of the corner of his eye. When the three visitors had left, she walked over to the side of the capsule and started slamming her head into the armor plate. "Um, Nabiki, I don't think that's good for someone who hasn't gone through the breaking point," Ranma offered, more than a little concerned over the girl's odd behavior.

She only gave him the evil eye. "Ten hours," she mumbled. "I've got TEN HOURS to get this thing repaired, or we aren't going to be able to launch the Gundam at all, and they're going to be able to tear us to pieces. it's going to be the shortest Gundam Fight in history!"

"Erm," Ranma said uncertainly, "I'm sure you can do it, right?"

Nabiki just sighed, slowly resting her head against the metal this time rather than smacking it into it. "Just leave me to work," she whispered, sounding almost on the verge of tears. This, of course, set off the martial artist's 'upset girl' reflex, but since he had no idea what to do to help her, he just skulked off to train, and listened in case she wanted anything.

HR.

"Wake up!" Ranma fell off of the rock he'd been sitting on in lotus position, smacking into the ground with great force as the ringing in his ears subsided.

"Gwa? Huh?" he asked, raising his head from its indentation in the earth, to see that Nabiki was standing over him, her expression somewhat manic.

"I see the Swedish Gundam coming, and the fight is legally allowed to start in about ten minutes," she said, swaying dangerously on her feet. "You've got to get ready!"

"Huh? So you've got the Gundam out?" the pigtailed boy asked, glancing over to the capsule, which still looked as intact as ever, though there was a large heap of tools scattered around its base.

"Oh, sort of," the middle Tendo said, in a sing-song tone, and then giggled.

"Um... Okay," Ranma said, starting to walk away from her slowly. She was currently acting like Kodachi Kuno on a self-concocted drug high, and he really didn't want to think much about what she might do if he provoked her.

Clambering up into the hatch that lead, through a catwalk, directly into his Gundam's cockpit, Ranma noted that the whole thing had somehow been restructured. Gone were the two seats and control station, replaced with two large concentric rings mounted in the ceiling, surrounded by total blackness. The light from outside filtered in well enough, revealing a circular platform at his feet, but seemed not to reflect off of the walls. "All right, what now?" he asked, and was answered as the area around him flickered with several holographic displays,each of which ran through some sort of incomprehensible diagnostic sequence before disappearing again.

Right after that, Nabiki's face appeared floating on another screen, her eyes, now that he got a better look at them, ringed as though she hadn't slept for over a day... which, he supposed, she hadn't. "All right, it's keyed to your voice and bio-rhythms," she said. "In order to activate it, all you have to do is call its name, which is Rain Gundam. Now do it quickly, the Neo-Sweden Gundam is almost here."

"Um, right," Ranma said, uncertainly, and then called into the blackness, feeling kind of stupid for doing so. "Rain Gundam!" Instantly, the room around him seemed to come alive with light, the screens flickering into place again as the circles above him began to spin, slowly descending towards him.

HR.

As they approached the Neo-Neriman camp, the Neo-Swedish commander glared at what he could see of the area, which included the fully intact form of the landing capsule. "What on earth are those idiots playing at?" he demanded, and then snorted. "Fine, ready the Nobel Gundam, if they want to leave themselves open to attack, I'm not one to disappoint."

"Yes, sir," the man sitting next to him in a large truck said, tapping at the keys on a terminal he was holding. "Allenby, ready for launch," he ordered, opening a communications line to the mobile fighter's cockpit.

"Yes, sir," the girl's voice returned, and behind the two men, the huge form of the machine lumbered off of its transport bed, hauling itself to its feet slowly and sluggishly as its power systems warmed up. Taking several steps and flexing its arms a few times, Allenby's voice came across again, "Nobel Gundam, ready."

"Good," the commander said, nodding. "Now, attack the landing craft ahead."

"But sir, I..." Allenby objected.

"You heard my order. If you don't comply, we'll activate it now," the man snapped, and she sighed.

"Sir, you should really be careful, that could disturb her mental balance!" the man next to the commander said, frowning down at his computer readouts.

"Fine, give the boy a minute to leave the capsule, THEN destroy it!" the commander barked, bringing his fist down on the dashboard of the truck. "Just get this test of her abilities over with so we can begin moving on other targets."

"Yes, sir." Allenby said, having apparently heard this entire conversation, and starting towards the combat area. When she reached the edge of the tree line, she opened up communications with Neo-Nerima's Gundam. "Are you ready for this match?" she asked, but what she got back was quite a surprise.

"What the hell is this?" the Neo-Nerima combatant exclaimed, as his form flickered onto her forward screen, clad in a skin tight black and red pilot suit, with a Yin-Yang symbol emblazoned across his chest. "This is like what Happosai'd make someone wear if he were female!"

"Hmm?" the Neo-Swedish pilot asked, confused. "Are you going to exit your capsule and prove that boast you made yesterday?" She smirked. "You've only got thirty seconds before I have to open fire."

"What?!" the pigtailed pilot questioned, blinking rapidly at the figure on his own communications screen. "Um, Nabiki told me that she had this figured out, but I don't know..."

It was at that precise moment that Nabiki, sitting safely several hundred meters away, chose to push a button on a small, square device in her hand. Though she knew what would happen afterward, she didn't actually witness it, as she fell over from exhaustion just then. Still, even if she wasn't able to witness it, the results of her actions were spectacular, as dozens of tiny shaped explosive charges tore holes in the structural elements of the landing capsule, causing its armor plates to fall away as they normally would, though they were smoking ominously at the edges.

Now, standing in the middle of a raised platform with several large metal plates around it stood the form of Neo-Nerima's Rain Gundam. It was almost seventeen meters tall, and reasonably slender save for large plated sections along the shoulders, upper arms and wrists that made it look as though it were wearing bracers and shoulder pads. Its head was shaped much like that of the Gundam across from it, save the fact that it had a strange, reticulated construct falling down its back from the base of its skull. It stood still for several moments, its red and black paint scheme gleaming in the sun, before it raised its arms, flexing its hands several times.

As its hands flexed, its pilot's face began to split into a wide grin. He'd still been a little worried about his ability to pilot a Mobile Fighter, despite his brave words, up until just a moment ago but now, feeling it move as he did, the calibration almost perfect... "Let's do this," he said, and leapt into the air, landing with a loud crash on the ground just outside of the ring of metal plates.

Allenby nodded, and the two giant machines ran at each-other, each pilot drawing back a fist. The attack was strong, and easy to predict as Ranma dodged to the side, lashing out with one leg to impact with a loud crash against the knee cap of the Nobel Gundam, sending it staggering off to the side slightly.

Whirling around, it came up with a lashing ribbon of what looked like solid energy, and Ranma jumped backwards, trying to gain enough air to get out of range. Unfortunately, he hadn't factored in the mobile fighter's increased weight, and the ribbon sliced across its chest, making a shallow gash in the armor. As it did so, the skin tight suit that Ranma wore compressed sharply along his chest in the same spot, bruising the skin there, and remaining in that position to cause even more discomfort. "Some sort of force feedback? Great..." he muttered, suddenly wondering if he'd inflict the same kind of damage on the girl piloting the other machine, and if so, whether she was tough enough to survive it.

Jumping quickly over another lash of the ribbon, he realized that he really didn't have much of a choice, as she would definitely win if he didn't fight back. Rolling under the next strike, he came up with one foot aimed squarely at the Nobel Gundam's hand, where the whip had emanated, and as he connected, the weapon went flying into the lake.

HR.

"Commissioner, Elder," a Joketsu aide began, stopping right outside of the commissioner's conference room. It did not do to barge in to such meetings without permission. Doing so could be quite... unpleasant, or so her predecessor had told her. When she was waved in, she finished, "We have just received word from Earth."

"So, it has begun," Shampoo concluded.

"Elder, could you please stop trying to sound like a stereotypical villain?" Soun asked, sighing tiredly.

"Bah. I'll not let you take away an old woman's simple pleasures," she declared. Turning to the messenger, she asked, "So, where did they land? I'm sure Nabiki has altered their course."

"Our last readings place them near the Scandinavian peninsula, Elder Shampoo. We were unable to narrow it any further."

"So they landed safely?" the commissioner demanded, worried about his little girl.

"As far as our scans can indicate, Rain Gundam landed safely," the aide confirmed.

"Very well," the Tendo patriarch said. "You are dismissed. I wish to be informed of any updates." While the aide turned to leave, Soun Tendo stood before a large window, hands clasped behind his back, brooding.

"Oh, now it's fine if you act the villain," Shampoo commented. "I see how it is."

HR.

Inside of her cockpit, Allenby grimaced, but it was quickly replaced with a smirk as she dove in to grab the leg that had just been used against her and tried to toss her opponent across the field with it. Annoyingly, he managed to regain his feet before he landed, but it didn't really bother her. For the first time in her short career as a Gundam pilot, she was fighting someone on her level. In fact, it was very strange that they hadn't interfered yet, but she wasn't going to complain. "You're pretty good," she admitted, "but I've noticed you haven't used any of your weapons yet. Not going easy on me because I'm a girl, are you?"

"I have weapons?" the black haired boy on a screen off to the side asked, the quizzical expression on his face making her chuckle.

"Allenby, you aren't supposed to give advice to your opponent!" the scientist with the oddly large nose rebuked from the other side, and she grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry, but he really doesn't know about them? Everybody knows about them!" She exclaimed, incredulously.

"That's it," the commander said from where he was watching the match and the communications traffic. Cut off her link with the other pilot, and activate the Berserker System!"

"But, Sir!?" the scientist objected, "She's doing well, even if her opponent disarmed her of her beam ribbon, she's still got the hoop, and..."

"Dr. Svensson, do I need to have you relieved?" the man looked down under the hard glare aimed at him, and sighed.

"No, Sir," he mumbled, and began slowly entering commands into the laptop in front of him.

HR.

"Would you stop jumping around so much?" Allenby demanded, as Ranma rolled away from her hoop, which she sent streaking past him in a wide arc.

"Sorry, got bad memories of gymnastics hoops," he smirked back, and was about to go on the offensive when something odd happened. Abruptly, Allenby's video window went fuzzy, and began to break up, as she started screaming like a banshee. Her mobile fighter fell to its knees, clutching its head, but Ranma wasted the perfectly good opening as he stared in shock. "Are... are you all right?" he asked, walking slowly towards the other fighter, slowly extending his hand.

As a result of his concern, he was completely blindsided when his opponent rose to its feet, the golden radiators that gave the illusion of hair down its back unfolding into a massive cooling assembly, and a red aura forming around its body. The only thing that saved him from an instant, and most likely quite painful, loss was his quick reaction time as he jumped backwards, scooping one of the discarded sections of landing capsule up and using it as a shield as seven tons of pissed off Gundam smashed into it, knocking him backwards, right up to the edge of the water.

"Why's it always water?" he complained, as he kicked up both legs to send Allenby flying up and back, but not before her beam hoop gashed his shoulder armor deeply. "Allenby, what's going on?" he asked, as the communications link had gone completely silent by this point. He knew that this match was supposed to be fought with all of their strength, but the girl's style had changed so rapidly, even he was sure that he would have been hard pressed to do so so quickly, and the scream she'd let off was really worrying him. "Are you all right, Allenby?"

"She can't hear you."

"Huh?" Ranma asked, as Nabiki's voice came drifting into his ears through his cockpit's speakers. "What did you say?"

"I said, she can't hear you." Nabiki responded. "There's some serious interference being generated from close by. It's blocking most types of communication, and there's some sort of counter signal being transmitted from the Nobel Gundam on the only clear frequency."

"Um, ya wanna say that in terms I can understand?" Ranma asked, though his inattention cost him as Allenby sped in with a fast, almost blurring series of punches, which he just barely managed to get his machine's arms up in time to block. Starting to return fire with the Amaguriken, his eyes suddenly widened as the Rain Gundam's arms began pumping faster than he'd expected, almost how that game character that he'd fought against had acted in the arcade at the colony. Still, he couldn't exactly call this a bad thing, as dozens of punches rained down on Allenby's machine's chest, and its arms when they were raised to block. It was only after one of the limbs buckled that he winced, recalling what that would likely feel like for the pilot inside. "Oh, crap," he muttered, reeling back and stopping his flurry of blows. He knew that she couldn't hear him, but he had to try anyways. "Allenby, can you hear me? Are you all right?"

"I told you, she can't hear you, but I think I see the cause of our little interference problem," Nabiki returned. "Try and keep her busy for a few more minutes."

"...Right..." Ranma replied, jumping out of the way of yet another violent lunge from his opponent, and grabbing her by the arm. Much to his shock, however, she managed to jerk violently sideways, sending him off balance due to the difference in the Gundam's weight versus his own. As he fell over her, he couldn't help but be thankful that they were both in giant robots, or someone would have undoubtedly materialized with a table to smash over his head. Also, as he fell towards the water, rolling into the lake, he had to smirk at the fact that the water couldn't touch him behind several feet of heavy armor.

That, of course, was when the nozzles set around the base of the platform he was standing on sprayed into his body, drenching him from head to toe. "What the hell? Why would they design something like this into the cockpit?!" the short redhead screeched indignantly, as she hauled herself to her feet, and noticed that something felt off. Raising one hand, she noticed that her machine's entire arm looked different. "You've... got to be kidding," she mumbled, sourly, but was caught before she could say or think anything else as Allenby cannoned into her side, knocking her to the ground and starting to claw at her armor.

"Ngh," she groaned, as the attacks seemed to be digging a lot more deeply into the innards of her Gundam, at least according to the feedback she was getting from the suit. Straining, she tried to break loose of the Nobel Gundam's grip, and suddenly was feeling a hard, fast jerk as two booster engines on the Rain Gundam's back flared to life, throwing her clear... and about six meters over the lake. Straightening up before she landed in the water, she scowled.

This, she decided, was getting annoying. She was fighting in an arena that changed the rules on her every ten seconds, and that she didn't understand at all to begin with. While she would normally excel in a situation like that, she was also vastly out of her depth. "I'm ending this now," she proclaimed, churning up a wake of water as she charged at her opponent, and leaning forward as the thrusters on her machine's back activated again. "Gah!" she cried as she slammed full force into Allenby's Gundam, just as the blue haired girl's startled face appeared on her video screen.

HR.

"So, who are you again?" Allenby asked, as she was being helped up the lake shore by Ranma, both of them still in their pilot suits.

"I'm Ranma," the redhead said, for the third time in the last five minutes.

"Yeah, I heard you before, I just thought I was delirious," the other girl explained, matter-of-factly. "And you change with..."

"Water temperature."

"And your Gundam?" as she said this, the Swedish girl gestured back at the Rain Gundam, which now looked much different, its bracer clad arms and thick shoulders replaced with much thinner arms, only one small port in each wrist. What annoyed Ranma most, however, was that the armor seemed to have somehow been remolded to give the thing a vaguely feminine shape.

"I blame the Ol' Ghoul," the redhead muttered. "That's probably a safe bet."

"Yes, but how?" Allenby objected. "The mass is completely different, it doesn't make any sense!"

Ranma shrugged helplessly. "Probably hidden weapons fields, or some other technobabble," she said, not seeming to think that it was terribly important.

Allenby was about to ask what that was all about, when the two pilots came into view of a scene that stopped them both in their tracks. Allenby's maintenance crew commander was standing across from Nabiki, who was holding a large rifle that could probably be used to shoot down tanks and leveling it at him with no apparent effort.

The blue haired girl tried to run to her superior officer's defense, but didn't get terribly far past propping herself up on Ranma's shoulder before she fell forward, the redhead catching her.

"Okay, do I wanna know why you were holdin these guys at gun point?" Ranma asked, resigned.

"Correction, I still am," Nabiki returned, as the commander tried to sidle out of her line of fire. "Article Five of the Gundam Fight regulations clearly state that any Gundam Fight must be a one on one match, and interference from anyone else, in any way beyond a tactical advisory role, is strictly forbidden." She smirked evilly. "I'm just here to keep these guys from breaking the rule, that's all."

"Wait, what'd they do?" Ranma asked, her eyes narrowing.

"They were using a special system in your opponent's cockpit to translate radio waves into neural impulses," Nabiki said, and seeing Ranma's blank stare, she sighed. "They were making her go crazy."

The redhead scowled, thoughts of the Neko-Ken running through her mind, before she raised one hand and pointed at the truck that the sputtering soldier was standing in front of. "That what did it?" she asked, shortly.

Nabiki nodded briefly.

"Moko-Takabisha." The attack wasn't even called, just stated, though the deadly look in Ranma's eye when she said it made it clear what she was using to fuel it. The large ball of Chi that erupted from her hand smashed into the truck within seconds, and kept right on going, rending metal and plastic as it tore the vehicle to pieces.

"What was that supposed to accomplish?" the commander sneered. "We can just build another one."

"Um, erm, sir?" Dr. Svensson interjected, from nearby. "My computer gear was in that truck, and it had all of the data for the system. It would take me well over a year to reconstruct all of the algorithms needed."

At about this point, the commander's eyebrow was twitching violently, and there was a vain bulging on his neck that looked as though it was going to burst. He considered pulling his weapon and shooting the insubordinate and incompetent fools in the head, just to relieve his stress, but as the green haired girl with the huge rifle shifted her weight slightly and he heard metal click against metal, he quickly shelved that idea. "Understood," he ground out, through gritted teeth. "Our new secret weapon was beaten on its first deployment, by a newcomer pilot, from a backwater colony, who hasn't even learned to use his Gundam yet!" he barked, spittle flying from his mouth as he leaned in towards Allenby, who flinched away into Ranma's shoulder.

He turned from her, disgusted, and not noticing that Ranma was starting to glow blue, and rounded on Dr. Svensson. "This experiment is a colossal failure, and we are cutting all ties with it. Unfortunately, our country's Gundam entrant is sitting over there, customized for this pilot, and we can't remove it now. For both of your sakes, I hope that you bring at least SOME glory to this nation before you get destroyed."

"Yes, Sir," the doctor said, though even his fist was clenching and releasing spasmodically. Fortunately, the commander didn't notice as he turned and started to walk away.

"We're returning to base. Beardsley, you have failed in one mission, do not fail in another. You are being denied any further resources, so I suggest you stay out of fights," he said, turning on his heel and marching off.

Dr. Svensson sighed. "Overly proud old fool," he muttered, as the commander's car drove off into the distance.

Walking up next to him, Nabiki Tendo raised an eyebrow at the old scientist. "You were lying through your teeth," she said, evenly. "Given enough time, I could probably reproduce the frequencies you used from the sample I got."

He nodded.

"Then why..." she asked, confused.

He shrugged. "Felt like the right thing to do at the time," he answered, grinning slightly crookedly. "I wonder what we're going to do now?"

"You're comin with us," Ranma decided as she walked up, Allenby having finally recovered from her berserker state enough to stand beside her.

"Wait, you invited them to come with us?" Nabiki asked, her eyes bulging. "We just destroyed our Gundam transport, and we don't even have any supplies until the colony sends down my maintenance unit in a few days... I hope."

"What, you want us to just leave 'em after we pretty much caused this?" Ranma asked, gesturing back to where the broken truck was still flaming.

"You mean YOU caused it," Nabiki said, but looking over to where Allenby and Dr. Svensson stood, she sighed. "Fine, they can come, at least for a while."

"Great," Ranma said, "Let's get goin!" She started towards her Gundam for a moment, and then blinked. "Erm, wait, where are we goin?"

Nabiki raised one hand to rub at her temples, but was interrupted as a loud, rumbling crash echoed over the lake from far off. Looking up and around, she saw a line of smoke lazily floating up from over the horizon. "There's good, I guess," she said, pointing to it.

END.


	3. The Star That Fell to Earth

Chapter 2, nothing really to say. Enjoy.

Chapter 2: The Star That Fell to Earth.

"Would you stop that?" Ranma complained, as the sound of rapid fire key clacking echoed behind him. Up until now, he could generally ignore it, but leaning back in a seat and watching scenery go past as the Rain Gundam flew towards whatever had crashed was boring enough without a repetitive noise that echoed around the tiny confines of the piloting cabin to make it worse.

"But, this is impossible," Dr. Svensson complained from where he sat on the floor behind the Gundam pilot, a small laptop jacked into a computer port that led off of the console in front of the younger man. "Somehow you have a part exchange system that shunts mass to and from nowhere, and it's even capable of switching out things as small and sensitive as computer interlinks." He shook his head. "And every time I try to access the files on it, I get an access denied message."

Ranma shrugged. "Probably for the best," he mumbled. "Once, Mousse tied me up in front of an open hidden weapons pocket for about half an hour; it's apparently supposed to make you go insane after a while, but I guess they're wrong."

"Actually, they aren't," Nabiki chipped in from her seat next to Ranma's. "Hidden Weapons space is non-Euclidean." Seeing the scientist behind them opening his mouth, she cut him off. "No, that's not impossible, and we can't tell you how it's done because it's a state secret. Yes, Ranma doesn't know."

"Awww..." the older man said, looking like a kicked puppy. "Well then, what about the transformative abilities of the pilot? Surely, that can't be classified."

"Well, technically..." Nabiki started, but Ranma shook his head.

"C'mon, Nabs, he's going nuts back there. Throw him a bone," the martial artist complained, while squinting at the screens in front of him.

She shrugged. "Ancient Chinese curse," she responded, deciding that the bone would be very small, indeed.

The man grumbled to himself for a moment, before going back to his computer screen, and pouring over what he could of the Neriman Gundam's design. What he could see of it, in fact, looked several years out of date compared to the Nobel Gundam, as if they'd reverse engineered it from purchased mobile suits, or something. Its armaments consisted only of 4 Vulcan guns, three of which currently couldn't be accessed, four missile tubes, which apparently couldn't be fired in "F-Form," whatever that meant, and two beam sabers, all of which the pilot had yet to use.

He shook his head, looking up at the back of the young man's head. Sociologically, he was probably as intriguing a subject as Allenby, but as he thought that, he resisted the urge to think that way. That had been the reason he'd found himself sucked into the Swedish government's projects in the first place.

"So you won't tell me anything about..." he tried.

"No," Nabiki said, and her eyebrow was twitching when Allenby inadvertently saved her mechanic from having something heavy and metallic slammed over his head.

"I think I see something," the blue haired girl reported from her own Gundam, which was flying slightly ahead of the larger machine that housed the other three. "Looks like a giant golf ball."

Nabiki grimaced. "That would be it," she confirmed, and after a moment cut in, "and that's not a giant golf ball, it's the Mjolnir."

Ranma looked at her oddly. "Is there a reason ya named your repair mech after Thor's hammer?"

She shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, you know what's in it."

Ranma nodded. "I still think some 'o that's excessive..." he started, but was glared at by his mechanic. "All right, all right... freakin gun nut."

"I heard that!" Nabiki growled back, but was soon distracted by the task of landing the Gundam next to the crater that her own machine had formed. "You should probably stand up," she said, and Ranma did so as she hit a button on the console, causing all of the control systems to shimmer and blink out of existance with a small pop of displaced air. On the floor, where his laptop's transfer cable had fallen with a clatter, Dr. Svensson's eyebrow twitched, but he comforted himself with the fact that he'd dumped all of the files he could from the Gundam's computers already.

HR.

"This doesn't look good," Nabiki mumbled, as the four travelers stood around the base of Nobel Gundam, looking up. "Did you have to do such a number on the thing, Ranma?"

"Hey, it wasn't my fault she got snapped out of it just as I was landing a finishing attack," the martial artist objected, gazing up at the very large dents that covered various portions of the machine from where he had smashed it into the shoreline. While it had been operable enough to fly here, its movements were stiff and jerky, and at least a few of the power couplings in the lower body were blown, not to mention the fact that many of the radiators on the head were now missing.

"Well, I can repair most of the gashed armor through replacement plating for our machine, but some of this equipment is specialized," Nabiki said. "It'll be pretty hard to reproduce."

Allenby sighed, moving forward and resting one hand on the machine's foot. She hadn't really wanted to get involved in the Gundam Fight at all, but still, somehow, the crippling of her fighter upset her slightly. "So, it can't be repaired?" she asked, softly.

"Hey, now I didn't say that," Nabiki objected, quickly. "Do either of you know what company manufactured the parts? We could probably buy some more from them."

Dr. Svensson shook his head. "They were specially manufactured," he explained, gesturing up to indicate the mobile fighter's 'hair.' "All of the current components are back at the base."

"Yeah, and new ones would cost an arm and a leg," the middle Tendo frowned, then an idea hit her. "Hey Ranma, you think you could help?" she asked. "I've heard some stories..."

Ranma shifted slightly and asked, "What type of stories?" Usually, comments like that lead to shouts of perversion or extreme embarrassment, neither of which he wanted to deal with at the moment.

The green haired girl shrugged. "You know, the usual. Turning invisible, throwing blades of-"

"No!" Ranma cut in forcefully. "Those were sealed for a reason, and they're going to stay that way!"

"But Ranma," Nabiki wheedled, "it'd make things so much easier." After a moment, when Ranma looked as though he were going to object, she added, "Besides, Ryu Kumon unsealed them ages ago."

Ranma's eyes narrowed to slits as he asked, "And you have proof of this?"

Fiddling with a wrench that she had pulled out of nowhere for just that purpose, she admitted, "No."

"Then the answer is no," Ranma stated with all finality, as the other two watched the byplay as if it were a tennis match.

"Maybe they're siblings," Allenby speculated, whispering to her mechanic.

HR.

Ranma stood in the middle of Rain Gundam's cockpit, Allenby standing right behind him, as the two pilots busied themselves while their mechanics were cooing over Nabiki's mobile suit and repairing Allenby's as best they could.

For the blue haired girl, the vaguely spider-like way the white ball had forced its way up and out of its landing crater had creeped her out more than she'd wanted to admit, and Ranma had seen the thing dozens of times before, so he didn't really see much point in gawping at it.

"Okay, so how do you use these weapons systems you were talkin' about?" he asked, curiously.

"Well, it's basically all about muscle contractions. Your weapon systems would be assigned to movements you don't make often, probably," she said, surprising the martial artist with the competence with which she explained it. Despite how happy and flighty she'd acted ever since the two groups had joined, he reminded himself, she was also a well trained soldier.

"So, how do I figure out what does what?" the pigtailed boy asked. Allenby shrugged, and looked up at a small display that was hovering above their heads, showing the machine's status and weapons loads.

"Hmm," she muttered, tapping one hand on her chin. "Well, if it's the way most mobile fighters are set up, the missile battery would probably be activated by some sort of eyebrow or eyelid movement."

"Wait, missiles?" Ranma asked, blinking stupidly several times. Upon the third rapid blink in succession, some sort of holographic ring materialized over his right eye.

"All right, now all you have to do is shrug, most likely," Allenby said, smiling at her new friend's accomplishment.

Ranma did so.

Several hundred meters away, an unsuspecting, and undeserving, tree was promptly blown to pieces by four explosive tipped mini-missiles that flew from the Rain Gundam's shoulder mounted tubes, and Ranma found himself blinking again, stopping himself just before he could re-activate the system.

"Nicely done," Allenby complemented, while Ranma was still staring dumbly at the smoldering tree down range. "Now, all we have to do is figure out the beam saber and machine gun," she proclaimed, and then hugged him enthusiastically.

As Ranma stiffened, expecting the wrath of god to descend upon him, and Allenby was completely unaware of what she was inadvertently doing by hugging her new friend, they both heard the sound of the Gundam's hydrolics working, as if it were moving. This was pretty much an impossibility, as Ranma was standing perfectly still, his pigtail sticking straight out behind him.

Backing off and wondering precisely what was wrong with the male martial artist, Allenby looked curiously up at the schematic image of the Gundam anyways, and started to laugh.

"Um, what's so funny?" Ranma asked, calming down as no grievous bodily harm was apparently forthcoming.

"I can't believe they made it move," Allenby replied, pointing at the martial artist's pigtail. "When you somehow managed to make that thing stand straight out, the one on the machine did the same thing."

"Oh..." Ranma said, worriedly.

"Yeah, I was wondering why it had a Vulcan cannon at the end of it," the blue haired girl said, and the martial artist promptly face-faulted, with entirely predictable results.

From where she and the doctor were looking over the arsenal of tools and weapons contained within her mobile suit, Nabiki looked oddly over at her country's mobile fighter, as it picked itself up off of the ground.

HR.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Ranma muttered to herself as she snuck across the outer courtyard of a Swedish military base, or, well, she tried to, though the fourteen meter tall form of a Gundam wasn't exactly built for such tactics. "'No, Ranma, you shouldn't be stealing things,' they told me, and here's Nabiki getting me to do this..."

"Would you stop griping?" Nabiki's voice said, as her face appeared on the pigtailed martial artist's comm screen.

"Still," the redhead objected. "I'm pretty sure this violates about fifteen laws."

"Wrong. Damage or destruction incurred during a Gundam Fight cannot be considered a crime," Nabiki said, perkily. "You're fighting Allenby right now, remember?"

"...Yeah..." Ranma drawled back. "Whatever." Closing the channel with an almost imperceptible muscle movement of her face, she continued on her mission, remembering that trying to understand Tendo logic usually gave her a headache, one way or the other.

Starting across the base once again, she made it most of the way to a large hangar before the first search light fell on her. "Aw, crap," she muttered, bursting into a run that ate up ground quickly, and smashing right through the hangar's wall, forcibly banishing any comparisons to a purple haired Amazon of her former acquaintance from her mind.

Looking around inside of the hangar, she noted a large, bright orange shipping container that Dr. Svensson had told her to look for, and walked over to it. Bending down, she grabbed it on each end and started to lift it, wincing as she saw several tell-tales light up along the bottom of her vision that informed her that her arm strength was being taxed. Turning, she started running for the entrance she'd created, though her gate was a lot more wobbly and unsteady now, and she was only kept upright by her own excellent balance.

"Ranma, get moving, now!" Nabiki's voice came over the comm line again, sounding panicked. Without thinking, the redhead flexed the muscles in her back, and the boosters on the Rain Gundam's own back roared to life, propelling her into, and through, the roof as a tank shell obliterated the ground where she'd been standing moments before. Throwing a quick glance over her shoulder, her eyes bulged.

"You never mentioned tanks, damn it!" the redhead yelled, as several AA guns turned to track her desperately fleeing form, opening up with a loud and repetitive crack. She felt several impacts pinging off of her leg armor, but fortunately none of them managed to penetrate too far, and she was out of range within minutes. "All right, Nabiki, I'm ready for pickup," she said, exhaling a long sigh of relief.

The middle Tendo didn't acknowledge, but then, she didn't have to as an alert popped up in front of Ranma's eyes, informing her of an incoming target that was quickly identified as her mechanic's mobile suit, scuttling across the ground as quickly as it could on six crab-like legs. "Load it in here," the middle Tendo ordered, as a hatch popped free on the side of the mobile suit that looked like it could barely accommodate a human. Still, Ranma didn't comment, sliding the crate in until it disappeared, and the hatch slammed closed.

"I feel vaguely dirty," she confessed, as the two started away from the base.

"You'll get over it," Nabiki replied, shrugging.

"I still don't really like this," Allenby's voice came from behind the middle Tendo. "We're supposed to be upholding the dignity of our nations, after all."

"You really want to worry about that asshole?" Nabiki asked, recalling the blue haired girl's former superior.

"Well, no, but you..." Allenby said, slowly.

"These people are from Neo-Nerima," Dr. Svensson said, patiently. "You do recall that they stole part of another colony for similar provocation, yes?"

Allenby was strangely silent.

HR.

"Eeeeek!" Ranma bolted upright from where she was sleeping under a tarp hung from one of her Gundam's feet as she heard the sound of someone screaming in total terror. Running across the clearing that the group had set up camp in to the sound's source, she saw something that would remain with her into her late life.

Nabiki was hopping around, buck naked, and still screaming. "..."

"Guh?" the still kind of sleepy pigtailed girl said, staring at her mechanic strangely. "Nabiki?"

This seemed to bring the Tendo girl back to something approaching normalcy, as she stopped dancing around, but began brushing her legs off frantically, and picked up a sheet to wrap around herself. "Ranma?" She asked, "Are there any more of those things around?"

"Any more of what?" Ranma asked, now starting to sound kind of irritated, as Allenby approached, sleepily rubbing her eyes.

"The bugs, are there any more of them around?" the green haired girl asked, as she started to calm down a little.

"We're in the middle of a forest," Ranma said, deadpan. "There are probably hundreds of them in the clearing. ...Ow, what was that for?" she asked the last as Allenby bopped her on the top of the head.

"That's a great way to reassure her," the blue haired girl said. "There aren't any on you or your blankets, if that helps."

"Thanks, Allenby," Nabiki said, sighing in relief. Turning a dark look on Ranma, she snapped, "As for you..."

"Hey, what'd I do?" the shortest of the three girls complained, but was only answered as Nabiki slapped her across the cheek.

"You didn't have to stare that long, pervert," she snapped, before slipping her feet into the shoes that sat next to her blankets and gathering them to her chest. "I'm going to go sleep in my cockpit until we find a town to stay in."

"...Right..." Ranma said, rubbing at her cheek. "See if I come runnin when ya scream again," she grumbled, then smirked vindictively. "By the way, watch out for mosquitoes."

"That wasn't very nice," Allenby observed, as the middle Tendo tromped off, flinching.

"Shouldn't have slapped me," the redhead responded, casually, before turning back to head for her impromptu sleeping place.

Allenby just shrugged, having to concede the point. While all of this was going on, Dr. Svensson was busy sleeping, as he didn't want anything to do with the current events. That, or he was simply a heavy sleeper.

HR.

"We can get supplies here?" Ranma asked, as the four stood in front of Nabiki's mobile suit, which was squatting next to one of the paths that led into what he would charitably describe as a village, if he were in the middle of the Chinese wilderness.

"Well, it is the only place within a few thousand miles that probably hasn't seen our faces," Nabiki said. "People on Earth don't exactly take kindly to Gundam Fighters, especially out in the backwoods like this."

"Oh, I was wonderin why we left our Gundams behind," the martial artist said, scratching the back of his neck.

At this interplay, Allenby and her mechanic looked oddly at the other pilot. They had both noticed, and talked to each other about, his curious lack of knowledge regarding things that seemed common place to them, but hadn't really felt it polite to ask. Even Allenby's brashness only took her so far, after all.

"Well, okay, so we need fresh fruit and stuff, and those parts on your list, right?" the blue haired girl asked, looking from building to building and trying to find the one that looked most like a store.

"Yeah, that's everything," Nabiki said. "We've got a few tons of frozen meat in hidden weapons space, but it's not exactly easy to pry that much produce from the hydroponic gardens."

"Right," Ranma said, grimacing. When he was younger, on the road and eating the random findings of vegetable gardens most of the time, he'd thought that he could never get sick of beef, chicken and ham. The Neo-Nerima's colony's diet proved him pretty wrong on that score, though he had yet to get sick of rice, fortunately. "Let's split up, we can probably find the stuff faster that way, take one techie each?" he asked, looking over at Allenby.

"Hey!" Nabiki and Dr. Svensson exclaimed in unison, vaguely disgruntled.

"Okay, I'll take her," Allenby decided, grabbing the middle Tendo's arm and guiding her off, while she still sputtered. The young gundam pilot threw a look to her mechanic, who nodded back imperceptibly. Nabiki was too annoyed to notice, and Ranma, of course, was Ranma.

HR.

"Hmm, I would like one of these, but it would be a pain to get back to the Gundams," Dr. Svensson said, as he stood in front of a large, cylindrical device with disturbing looking points sticking from one end.

"Do I wanna know what that is?" Ranma asked, standing in the center of the parts shop that the two were looking through, and staying very, very still to ensure that he didn't smash anything by mistake.

"Rotary missile launcher," the doctor said, as though it were no big deal.

"How much does it weigh?" Ranma asked, sizing the weapon up.

"About eight hundred pounds," the doctor responded. "Why?" His question was answered in a most unexpected fashion, as the pigtailed pilot walked up to the object in question, kneeling down and swinging it over his shoulders. This was not because it took him any real effort to lift, but rather because it would be awkward to carry any other way.

"You gunna get anythin else?" he asked, looking around the store again. When he got no response, he looked back to see the shorter man gaping at him, while rubbing his eyes furiously. As the impossible image refused to sink back into his subconscious where it belonged, he resolutely decided not to think about it, turning to pick up the other things he needed.

HR.

"So," Allenby said, as she walked next to Nabiki down the main street of the village, where several large stalls were set out. "Do you like him?"

"What?" the Neo-Neriman mechanic asked, turning to her companion quickly.

"Well, a guy and a girl, about the same age, pilot and mechanic..." the blue haired girl said, spelling out the implications so clearly that a blind duck could see them, as the old Neriman saying went.

Nabiki scowled. "Like that jerk?" she asked, and snorted.

"He didn't seem that bad to me, I mean, he's a nice enough guy," Allenby interjected, surprised at the other's vehemence.

"Oh, yeah, he's a perfectly nice guy," Nabiki clarified. "He's just the largest jerk in the colonies." Alllenby's blink was nearly audible. The mechanic sighed. "Look, it's a long story, all right?"

"Well, all we've got to do is pick out vegetables, so you may as well start," the pilot plowed ahead, regardless of the green haired girl's obvious dodging tactic.

"You're about as subtle as Kasumi," Nabiki complained. "You are traveling with us, so I guess you should know. You noticed how he doesn't seem to know much about the earth and colonies' situation, right?"

Allenby nodded, taking a moment to glance around her surroundings. Truthfully, she really couldn't blame the people of Earth for how they felt, given what they'd been reduced to, but she had her orders, and generally tried not to think about it. Shaking off her thoughts, she realized that Nabiki was still talking.

"...140 years of really primitive cryogenic sleep," the middle Tendo was saying, and the blue haired girl tried to piece together the sentence before it.

"Wait, so he went in in..." she said, doing some quick calculations, "1990?"

Nabiki nodded. "Around then, yes," she said, and gave off a long, exasperated sigh. "I was assigned as his assistant, to get him acclimated to this time."

As the middle Tendo suddenly went silent after that, Allenby leaned towards her, noticing that her face was impassive, but there were small blotches of red on her cheeks. "There's something about this you aren't telling me," she decided.

"It's none of your business," Nabiki replied quickly, turning around and mentally chanting that she wanted nothing to do with beetle farming, ever.

The other girl considered pushing, but decided against it when she heard some sort of muttering about beetles. "We... should probably pick up the rest of the supplies," she offered.

Nabiki nodded decisively, and started heading for another stall.

HR.

As they met up in the area where they'd first split, Ranma still hauling the massive MS part on his back, Nabiki's eyes lit up. "Oh! That's a nice one!" She crooned, running over to examine the weapon. "I forgive you for that crack earlier."

"Huh?" Ranma asked, blinking at her oddly.

"You bought me a present, right?" the middle Tendo said, with a big grin.

"Erm," Ranma mumbled, a little intimidated by the glossy look in the green haired girl's eyes. "Sure, of course," he stammered, while the man next to him was making rapid cutting, and other negative gestures.

Nabiki nodded, and further shocking Dr. Svensson, she picked the device off of the pigtailed boy's back, only grunting a little under its weight. "Hmm, I could install a shoulder mount and targeting sight on the side," she said happily to herself.

"Is... she like that often?" Dr. Svensson asked, looking dubiously at the martial artist who was standing next to him, and once again trying not to think about the fact that a rather thin girl was carrying around something that weighed almost half a ton, and considering firing it from the shoulder.

The younger man nodded, before his stomach started to growl. "Can we find some place to eat now?"

END.

Agatha: I want one!

Weebee: No.

Agatha: Please? You took away my deathrays and won't give me the tech to build more.

Jonakhensu: Wait, you need tech?

Agatha: Hmm, I wonder if I could make a fusion reactor from keyboard parts...?

Jonakhensu: ...Never mind...


	4. Nabiki proves Her Ancestry

Disclaimer: This chapter is not meant to be offensive to any particular nationality. G Gundam was absolutely full of stariotypical portraiyals, from the tiquila gundam to Gundam Maxter, and we're just trying to follow in those foot steops, not be offensive ourselves. Please, remember this while reading this and future chapters.

Chapter 3: Nabiki proves Her Ancestry.

Something was rather odd, Nabiki thought as she slowly chewed on a carrot. While the food being served was of a decent quality, given the surroundings, she just couldn't understand their host's behavior. The fact that he insisted on serving them himself was only the first strangeness

"Is that satisfactory?" the man asked, his hands twitching in the front of the jacket he wore as he stood in front of their table. "Will there be anything else?"

"Um, don't suppose ya got any..." Ranma started, before his mouth was clamped shut by his engineer.

"We've got to pay the bills, remember?" she snarled, in a low voice

"Was only gunna ask for some soy sauce," he grumbled, but returned to his meal.

"On eggs?" Dr. Svensson asked, from where he was eating across the table.

Ranma didn't respond, and the table fell silent for a moment before the owner of the small restaurant in which they were eating turned and left. Once he was out of earshot, Nabiki spoke up. "Isn't he acting a little strange?"

"Hmm? How?" Ranma asked.

"Yeah, I see it too," Allenby agreed. "He really wants to keep us happy for some reason, like he's afraid we'll do something to him."

"A few others in the city were acting like that," Dr. Svensson said. "Maybe they recognize Allenby and Ranma as Gundam Fighters?"

"No, they didn't react to that when we were shopping," the aforementioned blue haired girl chipped in, "and I would be the most likely one for them to recognize, given I'm this country's Gundam Fighter."

"We could always just ask 'em," Ranma said, and before anyone could stop him, he raised his right hand and waved it. When the owner hurriedly came over to the table, he asked, "Hey, why're you so nervous around us? We ain't gunna do anything."

"Nervous? I, I don't know what you mean, I..." the older man said, straightening up a little, but as he did, Nabiki noticed him glancing uneasily at the hand that Ranma had rested back on the table. Blinking, she noticed something there.

"Ranma, where'd you get that tattoo?" she asked, reaching across her bowl and his to grab the appendage in question, without heeding the large spike in her danger sense when her fingers were over his food.

"Tattoo?" the pigtailed martial artist questioned, and then blinked as his green haired mechanic tapped the back of his hand. "Oh, that," he mumbled. "I woke up with it the day before we left for Earth. Figured it was your ol' man's idea of a warning to keep you safe, or somethin, since he had the same one."

"Oh," Nabiki said, and she resolved to call her father the first time the group reached an area with a good satellite phone network. For the time being, she wanted to know why the thing made the restaurant owner so nervous, but as she turned to ask him, she realized that he'd wandered off during the conversation.

"Damn it, where'd he go?" the middle Tendo mumbled, but was mostly ignored by the rest of her table, who were too busy enjoying their food.

HR.

"So, what do you think?" Allenby asked as she and her mechanic stood in the latter's room. She stood at the window, looking out at the small village, while he typed away on his laptop in the background.

"We can't really verify the story; most records from that far back are classified, destroyed, or both," the older man grumbled.

"I don't see why they would lie to us," Allenby objected. "They've been friendly so far."

Dr. Svensson shook his head. "You know what the Gundam Fight is about. Many nations would do almost anything to allow their fighters to win, and in many ways, Nerima is more desperate than others. There has to be a reason they entered this year, of all years."

"You're way too paranoid," the girl objected. "I bet you're just upset that they won't share their stuff with you, isn't that right?"

"Why I, that, how could..." the professor stuttered indignantly, but trailed off as he saw his charge's smug grin. "All right, perhaps I am a little miffed about that, but what has convinced you that they're trustworthy?"

Allenby shrugged, and then turned back to gaze out the window. "All those times, when my machine was being tested, I didn't have any enthusiasm for the fight at all, and then..." She shuddered, recalling the berserker system and inwardly breathing a sigh of relief that the entire framework for it had been torn out of Nobel Gundam during Nabiki's repairs. "Before the system was activated this time, though, I actually felt a thrill at fighting a human opponent, someone who just wanted to test their skills against mine, even if there was another motive behind it."

"That's all of it, hmm?" Svensson asked, looking up from his screen and giving his charge a speculative look that she didn't see, both due to the fact that she was looking the other way and because his glasses were reflecting the light of the screen.

"Well, no. He really did seem like he didn't know what he was doing while I taught him how to use his Gundam's weapons systems, and I don't know if anyone could act that consistently confused," she returned, completely missing whatever else he may have been implying. "As for Nabiki..." She shrugged. "Why would she lie after spending all of that time and material on fixing my Gundam?"

Svensson shook his head, but he also couldn't help grinning. He was glad that what had been done to her hadn't destroyed a rather innocent soul, even if that may bite her later. "Well, the readings I've got now indicate that we can take our leave of those two whenever we want, if we want, so I suppose it hasn't hurt us so far." As he said that, the doctor looked down at his screen one final time, cursing the results shown there.

HR.

"Got him again," Nabiki said, smirking as she reclined on her own bed one room over, Ranma leaning on the window ledge nearby.

"I still think you get way too much satisfaction outta jerking that guy's chain," the dark haired boy grumbled.

"Well, he is inviting it on himself," Nabiki countered, before she sighed and closed her laptop. "Looks like he packed up for the night."

"Is this place what all cities are like now?" Ranma asked, out of the blue, as he turned to more fully face the window, gazing across at the little village.

"Hmm?" the middle Tendo asked, not very interested, as she lay staring at the room's ceiling. "Most places are pretty small like this, I think, other than Neo-Hong Kong and New york."

Ranma frowned. "Yeah, figured," he mumbled, and hearing something she didn't particularly like in his tone, the green haired girl stood up to see the gundam pilot glaring rather than just looking. "Doesn't look right," he complained. "Dunno why, considering I spent mosta my time out on the road, but it just doesn't feel right."

Nabiki nodded slowly, but wasn't sure what to say. Instead, she tried to think of a different subject to change to. "What doesn't feel right to me is that you're in here, and it's almost midnight. Aren't you going to find another place to sleep?"

"Huh?' Ranma asked, blinking at her stupidly. "Thought I'd crash on the floor, and..."

"Oh, no you don't, not after last weekend," the girl retorted.

"Hey, that was an accident, and you were screamin your head off, y'know!" The martial artist objected grumpily, but at a steady look from the middle Tendo, he frowned. "Fine, lemme get some stuff."

She just watched silently as he packed up several spare bedsheets and a comforter, before leaping out the window. "Damn orders," she complained sourly. She doubted that Ranma would really go on a rampage and attack the other colonies if he found out about the prevailing conditions on Earth, but Elder Shampoo seemed half-way convinced it would happen.

She would have liked to ask the matriarch why in the world they were sending him to the planet, in that case, but hadn't really had the chance before being carted off into the drop capsule. "Probably not important," she assured herself. After all, she'd been around the pigtailed martial artist for about a year, and other than his ego, there wasn't much he would ever get excited about.

HR.

In a dimly lit corner of a small, dingy bar, four figures sat. None of them would be all that noticeable, as all of them wore dark, obscuring cloaks, except for their clustering together. The one time the bar tender had come over to ask them if they wanted anything, he'd received a glare that had sent him skittering back to serving other people, and no one else had really had the courage to approach since.

"So," one of them said, in a deep, rumbling voice, "you've all heard the rumors, as well?"

Another nodded. "Only from a couple of small towns, but something like this is hard to keep under wraps," it replied, in a voice that sounded female.

"So there is someone impersonating us, and for what reason we do not know," a third person said, quietly. "A... red joker, I believe they said?"

"Red Joker," the final figure snorted. "The least they could do is use one of the suits that we already use." He shook his covered head. "Have you heard that the fools are even using the same tattoo on two different people? A young man, and a girl."

"A stop must be put to this, or it will sully our reputation, and our honor," the rumbling voiced man commented. "We strike Neo-Nerima's Gundam, and its impertinent fighter."

"Agreed," the woman said, though at least one of the four had twitched in startlement at the name. They all stood to leave, dropping a small pile of currency on the table, before leaving the bar as one large, coordinated group.

The universe was once more in its proper alignment, as someone was out to beat the crap out of Ranma Saotome.

HR.

"Grass... more grass... even more grass," Ranma complained as he flipped through the magnification modes of the Rain Gundam's cameras, observing the countryside. At least when he'd been on the road with his father, he could jump around or work out to relieve boredom, but on long flights using the mobile fighter, the muscles used to activate the jets, normally flexed only rarely even in his more gymnastic fights, would begin to cramp, and therefore he was flying the machine using its mobile suit control scheme.

"Anything up ahead?" he asked, flipping a switch that caused a screen to pop up that showed Allenby, sitting in her own cockpit, her machine running almost entirely by auto-pilot and slaved to Nabiki at the moment.

"Still nothing," she said, and then smirked at him. "Just like the last ten times you asked."

The pigtailed pilot grimaced. "Bein in this tin can when I'm not fightin's a real pain in the neck," he complained. "I'm gunna start climbing up the walls, soon."

"That'd be kind of fun to see, actually," the blue haired pilot remarked, before gesturing, a holographic map appearing before her. "Don't worry though, it should only take us another couple of hours to reach our next target. Nabiki thinks that there's a Gundam Fighter there."

"Oh, yeah." The pigtailed martial artist said, smirking. "I can get some fightin in, after all."

"Hey, who says it's yours?" Allenby asked, indignantly.

"Huh?" Was Ranma's only response, followed by a blink.

"If I fight this guy, it'll be my first battle without that control system in," she explained. "I... I want to know if it's easier to work like that, if the combat can be more enjoyable, like it was with..." She bit her tongue, and then looked away.

Ranma, of course, didn't notice this, only shrugging. "Well, okay, 'guess I'll leave 'em to you, unless they challenge me first," he reluctantly agreed, even if it went against his sensibilities to give up a chance to fight.

Allenby briefly wondered what the odd look on Ranma's face was, before deactivating the communication line. The martial artist went back to looking out into the plains in front of him. "...Even more grass..." He sighed, and pondered the feasibility of putting his own machine on auto-tracking and doing a Kata in the cleared rear space.

HR.

"So, why am I doing this again?" Nabiki asked, slipping another item into her hidden weapons space for easy carrying. Those little baskets would never be large enough.

"Because we've been on the road for two weeks, and we need some stuff," the blue haired girl returned.

"And that giant box of chocolates?" the middle Tendo drawled.

Allenby looked at her like she'd grown a second head. "IT'S CHOCOLATE!" she exclaimed, vehemently.

"..." the colony born engineer replied, eloquently. She really didn't get the point of spending what would probably amount to half of their remaining funds on something that would likely be gone within a week, especially with the way she and Ranma ate. Still, it would be kind of nice. "Is there anything else we 'need?'" she asked, actually doing the quotes in the air.

"You're way too pragmatic sometimes, you know that?" the military raised giant robot pilot observed, giving the other an odd look. "Maybe we could get something for Ranma."

"We're going to be in debt for months after this," the green haired girl sighed, but Allenby resolutely ignored her, and started for a large bin full of ice cream.

"Do you think he likes this stuff?" she asked, and Nabiki tried to hold back a maniacal laugh as she thought of certain unfortunate venders in the colony's market district. In her entire life, she hadn't seen such a good execution of the puppy dog eyes of doom technique, and she was considered a fourth dan practitioner.

"Yes, she definitely does," she replied, putting special emphasis on the pronoun.

Allenby just blinked at her, but scooped up a tub of chocolate ripple anyways, and the two started for the cash register. When the mechanic dumped the contents of her hidden weapons pocket onto the conveyer, the clerk blinked rapidly several times, but began to scan the items through anyways.

"Whoops, don't scan that!" She quickly said, snatching a small Beretta 9mm pistol from the mass. "How did one of my antique guns get in there?" Allenby was about to say something, when the box of chocolates she'd bought was scanned through, and Nabiki blinked at the price readout. "Um, is that right?" she asked, pointing at it.

The clerk looked at her oddly, and then tilted his head and re-scanned the chocolates. Nabiki didn't respond, only nodding sagely, before taking off back into the store with a mad grin on her face.

"Um," Allenby said, fully aware that the other girl was holding their money. She stood there looking sheepish for several moments, before someone tapped her on her shoulder.

She spun easily, only to come face to upper chest with something red. Tilting her head upward, she saw a pale man with refined, sharp looking features staring down at her. "Um..." she said again, stepping backwards.

"Hello, pretty one," the man said, bowing to her and thrusting out his arm so that the red thing she'd seen previously unfurled, resolving itself into a cape. "Have you perhaps purchased too much for your means?"

"Nabiki should be back in a minute with..." Allenby started, but was interrupted.

"Enough, serving boy, charge this lady's bill to my account," the tall man ordered, and seemed to flick a small card out of nowhere, which Allenby would have found much more impressive before she'd seen Nabiki pull a three meter by three meter sheet of armor out of the same place.

"Thank you," the blue haired pilot replied, a little bit taken aback by the man's actions, "but you don't have to..."

She was cut off as the man leaned close to her, and put one long finger against her lips. For some reason, she twitched, and had the incredible urge to bite it. "Have no worries," he interrupted.

Just then, a walking pile of boxes of chocolate ran up to the two. "Um, Nabiki, is that you?" Allenby asked, looking dubiously at it. The pile nodded, sending several boxes cascading onto the counter, and revealing the Neriman's flushed, grinning face behind them.

"It's mine," she giggled, "All mine!"

"Uh..." Allenby said again, and briefly thought that she perhaps needed a new expression of total confusion, as that one was getting worn out through overuse.

Nabiki didn't respond, only dumping the rest of her newly found, and loudly claimed, possessions, and starting to dig through her wallet for her money.

"Isn't that a little... much?" Allenby asked, looking dubiously at the pile of boxes and completely forgetting about the red caped guy who was standing behind her.

"Nah, I only took half the stock," Nabiki returned. "So, how much is it?"

"Nine..." the cashier was saying, when he was interrupted by the rather miffed sounding red caped man.

"I have said that I would pay, and that I shall," he proclaimed. Charge whatever it is to my account, for these two wonderfully beautiful ladies shouldn't have to bare the burden."

Allenby was about to open her mouth, when Nabiki nudged her in the ribs, provoking an annoyed glare in return, which she promptly ignored. "Oh, you would really do that?" the middle Tendo asked, looking up at the taller man with falsely shining eyes. "That's so generous of you!" She continued, falling into form #5 of the Puppy dog eyes basic technique.

"Well, of course, and I'll even carry your things for you!" the man exclaimed, and then looked over to the pile of stuff at the end of the counter. "Erm, maybe I... should rent a truck for that," he amended, sweat-dropping heavily.

"That's great," Nabiki exclaimed. "Just hold on a minute while I get some more ice-cream." Without waiting for a response, she darted back into the aisles. A few minutes later, she returned, seemingly empty handed.

"My dear, were you not retrieving more ice cream?" their self-proclaimed payer asked.

"Nabiki," Allenby began nervously, "do I want to know how much you have stashed in there?" Considering how much she knew Nabiki could carry, this could end badly, especially for the strange man's wallet.

Nabiki had the grace to look a little sheepish. "Well, there were a bunch of flavors I've never even heard of," she explained. And I wasn't going to waste our money by buying something I didn't like." The caped guy, who had heard everything, flinched slightly. His eye began twitching regularly as each quart of ice cream was rung up with the others.

"Well, if that is everything, allow me to pay," the pale man said, holding his card out. His face was rather drawn, as though things had not gone exactly as he had planned.

"I'm good," Allenby said, feeling slightly bad for the guy. "What about you, Nabiki?"

"Yeah, I'm good," she agreed. Sure, she could probably get more out of the guy, but they already had enough to be set for quite awhile, especially since nothing they bought would be going bad anytime soon.

"Ah, thank god, I mean... good. Allow me to call for that truck." After a three minute call, he returned to the register and paid for the various items. Bowing slightly towards the two women, he said, "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Vlad Carp, Gundam Pilot for Neo-Romania."

"A Gundam Pilot, huh?" Nabiki mused. "I'm Nabiki, and this is Allenby. Thanks for buying all of that, by the way." When Allenby was about to add something, most likely about her own status as a pilot, she received a hard jab to the ribs.

The trio stood around somewhat awkwardly for the next ten minutes while waiting for the truck. When Vlad was looking the other way or trying to flirt with Allenby, Nabiki would shove a few quarts of ice cream into her weapons space. It would not do to allow it to go to waste.

Finally the truck arrived and the driver helped load everything into the back. Vlad gestured the girls into the front and climbed in after them. "And where would you like me to have you and your things delivered?"

HR.

Ranma looked up as he heard the sound of a loud engine echoing around the camp site, where he was running through practice kata, and Dr. Svensson was busily digging through the innards of the Gundams, doing tune ups, as he called it.

He really couldn't blame the guy. After all, he had done similar to learn martial arts techniques, but he just wished the scientist would give up, or Nabiki would finally tell him. The martial artist's stomach gurgled. "Wonder when they'll be back with the food," he mused.

Seemingly in answer to the question, the rumbling got louder and the vehicle that was producing it rapidly started approaching from the direction of the nearby city. Looking up at it, the black haired boy blinked. "Did she buy a truck?" he thought, but his question was answered when the vehicle pulled to a stop, and the driver's door opened to reveal a man who Ranma didn't recognize.

"Hey, what's goin on?" the martial artist asked, falling from his Kata and starting towards the newcomer in a casual lope.

"Hey Ranma, we got the supplies!" Nabiki's voice came from the vehicle's other side, the green haired girl hopping out easily. Seeing the pigtailed boy's odd look at her companion, the middle Tendo explained, "This is Vlad, he offered to pick up the tab for us this time. Vlad, this is Ranma, Neo-Nerima's Gundam Pilot. We travel together."

Vlad's brain took a few seconds to process this, during which time Allenby had gotten down out of the truck. Abruptly, he snapped out of thought and exclaimed, "You fiend, how could you keep two ladies such as these traveling across the wasteland?"

"Um, Nabiki's my mechanic, and Allenby's a Gundam Pilot," Ranma said, blinking at the idiot in front of him and resisting the automatic urge to bash him in the head for speaking like Kuno.

"A complete impossibility! Lovely flowers such as these could not possibly be lowered to do such menial tasks, nor would they have the skill for it!" the man objected, swirling his cape dramatically.

"...what did you say?" Allenby asked, her eyebrow twitching as she clenched and unclenched her fists.

"I don't mean to offend, my dear, but piloting a Gundam? Truly 'tis not a job for you," Vlad said, patronizingly.

"You... really shouldn't have said that," Ranma observed, wincing for the poor guy's safety. True, he was a jerk, but the way both of the girls were twitching, he probably didn't deserve what was coming.

"I challenge you to a Gundam Fight!" Allenby said, pointing dramatically at Vlad with one trembling hand. Nabiki was strangely silent, just standing nearby with her arms crossed. "Dr. Svensson, is Nobel Gundam ready for combat?" the girl asked, and the older man wandered out from where he was looking over the considerable amount of new supplies to respond.

"Fully repaired and functional," he said. "Should I prepare the support equipment?"

Allenby nodded sharply, but Vlad looked a little panicked. "I have not agreed to this match, dear lady!" he exclaimed, backing off and raising his hands.

"What, so you're backing down from the obviously incapable?" Nabiki asked, frostily.

"I, erm..." the vampiric man said, caught out.

"Face it, you're screwed," Ranma said, walking up to the man and slapping him on the shoulder. "Ya may as well get it over with."

The Romanian fighter looked between the angrily glaring Allenby and the nonchalantly standing Ranma, and scowled. "I apparently don't have a choice," he grumbled, before turning to the girl. "Very well, I shall fight you. Count Gundam, Arise!" he yelled, and abruptly, the ground started shaking.

Within seconds, a massive geyser of dirt exploded from where Ranma had been standing, but the pigtailed boy easily jumped clear beforehand, landing on Rain Gundam's leg. What he, and everyone else, saw caused them to blink.

"You've got to be kidding me," Nabiki mumbled, as she stared up at the eighteen meter tall coffin that now stood, fully upright, where Ranma once had.

Vlad didn't respond, only walking towards the massive object, and swirling his cape dramatically. He would have vanished, giving a truly dramatic exit, except for the fact that his cape got caught on the secret hatch that he'd entered the coffin with, and he sheepishly opened it for a moment to remove the cloth before slamming it again.

Ranma just blinked a couple of times, before shrugging, hopping up to Rain Gundam's entrance hatch in order to get the machine out of the combat zone. As he did so, however, he opened a link with Nabiki and Dr. Svensson, who were sitting at the sidelines behind the latter's laptop.

"So, ya think five minutes?" the pilot asked, off-hand.

"Three," Nabiki growled.

"Yeah, he did say somethin pretty stupid," the martial artist agreed, before turning his attention back to the battlefield, where Nobel Gundam was now standing across from the giant coffin. "So, the other guy in his Gundam yet?" he asked, but was answered as the massive construct's lid opened, the hydrolics that made it do so also somehow giving off a low pitched creaking sound.

In her own machine, Allenby's eyes narrowed as she caught sight of her opponent. The gundam actually looked much like the man, its body covered from head to toe in what looked like a red cloak, though it had the traditional Gundam head design. Strangely, protruding from the face mask were two long, downward pointing spikes that gleamed metallically in the sunlight. "Fighter ready," she said, and heard Vlad's response.

"I am ready, but my dear, are you sure that you do not want to stop this?" the pale man asked, appearing on her screen in a pilot suit that, strangely, still had his cape.

Allenby's response was Nobel Gundam's heat sinks beginning to unfurl as her teeth grit together. "No way," she snarled, "Fight!"

Ranma was impressed in spite of himself when Nobel moved. It seemed to blur, the hair flying behind it, as it delivered a devastating kick to the frame of the count gundam, causing it to fly back. Pretty much everyone there was surprised, however, when its cape unfurled, and it caught the air. In conjunction with its lift thrusters, the red and black machine used its wings to swoop around and land back on its coffin.

"Not a bad move, little girl," Vlad said, but he now sounded mildly annoyed. Unfurling the wings to full extension again, he swept down off of the coffin, swooping just over Nobel Gundam's head before turning around and trying to use the sun as a blinder to camouflage a dive-bomb attack.

Allenby raked her beam whip along the other Gundam's front, but this didn't do anything to change its trajectory, as it barreled into her, knocking them both to the ground and sending up a massive cloud of debris as they slid. Said cloud kept the entire field obscured for several seconds, but when it cleared, Ranma blinked. "That..." he said, surprised. "That was good."

On the ground, Nobel Gundam was laying with the other machine on top of it, however its beam whip was wrapped around the Count's neck. "Yield," Allenby demanded, over all frequencies.

"Now Miss, you cannot do..." Vlad started, before he was cut off by a brutal jolt to his machine. "You... did it?" he asked, as all of his external sensors shut down at once.

"Count Gundam's head has been destroyed," Ranma said, loudly. "Remind me never to piss you off, all right?"

"Sure thing," Allenby responded, pushing the hulk of the other machine off of her and scrambling to her feet.

HR.

"What is the meaning of this?" Soun demanded, looking over the reports Shampoo's aide had brought in.

"Well," Shampoo replied, looking over her own copies, "it looks like Ranma's back to his old tricks again."

Soun slammed the datapad against the table. Luckily, the device was made to withstand an angry maintenance worker, so no harm was done. The table, on the other hand, dented slightly. "You mean he always collected floozies when he should be loyal to his fiancee?"

Shampoo's eye twitched violently and her staff whipped out, smacking Soun upside the head. "You do realize," she growled, "that I was one of those floozies, correct?" Turning away from Soun, she continued, "No, Ranma doesn't even know about the engagement, so, even if the new girl, this Allenby, is there for that reason, Son-in-law is not 'cheating' on your 'baby girl.' Besides, it's always amusing to see him squirm." A short cackle echoed through the room, making the aide standing directly outside the door very thankful that she had already been dismissed.

"Are you trying to imply that your amusement is more important than my little girl's future?" Soun coldly demanded.

"Not at all," Shampoo denied. "Why should I settle for just one? Besides, we have a much better chance of success now than we ever did in Nerima."

"I hope you know what you're doing, Elder, for Nabiki's sake." Shampoo's only reply was more cackling that raised the hairs on Soun's neck.

End.

Agatha: But that cape couldn't possibly...

Weebee: It's G Gundam.

Agatha: Yes, but even as a Heterodyne, I have to at least say hello to physics before running past!

Weebee: I repeat, G Gundam.

Agatha: ...

Jonakhensu: Trust us, it works.


End file.
